Victory Tree
by Yonebashi
Summary: It's been a decade since the fall of the Alvarez Empire and the world has become an even more dangerous place. With the number of dark guilds increasing and the Magic Council having an iron, almost tyrant-like grasp on all the kingdoms... it's really hard being a newbie nowadays, especially when it's Beach City you've been assigned to.
1. Before the First

**_?_**

Pitch black darkness. That was all the boy that had barely turned 8 could see; the ominous silence that filled the mansion was only pierced by the distant footsteps and shouts that came from the intruders who had broken into his home.

The boy was scared. While covering his mouth in fear that the intruders would hear him by the slightest squeak a silent stream of tears slid down from his eyes; he didn't know where his father, mother, or older sister had run of to... all he could do was hope that the distant screams that were immediately cut off didn't belong to any of his family members.

His older sister hid him in the closet of her room and had told him _everything would be alright _before leaving with no explanation whatsoever.

Why? Why had she left him alone?

_She's dead._

Where were his parents?

_They're dead._

Was everyone alright?

_They're __**all **__dead._

No!

**_DEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEADEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEADEADDEADDEADDEADEADEADEADDEADEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEADDEAD!_**

The boy shook his head furiously as those thoughts began to fill his mind. He didn't want to think that; he didn't believe any of that! They weren't dead... no way! They couldn't be...

"I smell the brat,"

Before the boy could react in any way whatsoever the door to the closet was ripped opened by one of the intruders; his eyesight had adjusted to the dark by now so he could clearly see the cat-like female who immediately grabbed him with one of her hands. The boy screamed, that was all he could as the female grabbed him out of his hiding spot and threw him to the middle of his sister's room.

All of the intruders where there, surrounding him as if he was some kind of cornered sheep and they the hungry wolfs ready to eat the defenseless animal.

The neko walked closer, he could clearly see her white furred tail lash around behind her. What terrified him the most was her eyes though... they looked like that of a cat, bright yellow and seemed to illuminate in the darkness of the room. Just by looking into them he knew he was going to die, right then there he was going to die. They showed no mercy in them, all he could see was the killing intent almost literally ooze out of them.

"You gave us quite a chase kid," she spoke as her lips began to form a smirk, "But its over, everyone's dead. Your mommy, daddy, hell even the servants are all the dead!" she started to cackle like a maniac when she finished her sentence.

The boy froze from pure fear; there was nothing that could be done now. All he could do was wait his imminent death... which the neko didn't seem to be in any rush to execute.

"You know how I killed your mommy?" the female had been strolling around the boy before asking the answer and stopping just to look at the kid for an answer; the boss had told them to kill everyone as quickly as possible so she didn't really get to enjoy the massacre as much as she had wanted to. All of the kills had been performed so fast that none of the victims had time to react! What was the point of that?

Seeing the expression of someone who knows they are about to die... that's the perfect treat for a psychopathic maniac like her.

When the boy didn't answer she got one of her fingers and did a slicing motion over her neck, "BAM! Beheaded!" she started to laugh harder, "Your daddy too! Oh, it was just _soooooo_ easy! Seriously, too pathetic!"

"Naki, we need to get going" out of nowhere a voice spoke, it was one of the intruders and the tone made it sound like a male, "We need to find the vile with the blood and get out of here before the magic council arrives, like master said,"

"Oh shut up!" the female shouted, not even bothering to turn to face the grunt the neko continued to talk, "Who cares about the Magic Council! They are just a bunch of weaklings who can't do shit! I can kill them all if I wanted too!"

…

"Hey, don't you just ignor-" when she spun around to look at the poor soul that had decided to ignore her, Naki's her eyes grew wide from the scene.

There, on the floor laid the grunt's body with his head rolling right next to her feet. Before anyone could react a figure began to dash through the whole room, beheading all of the grunts as if they were made of paper. Once the figure beheaded the last of her lackeys, red eyes glared towards the neko before it dashed forward.

If Naki had reacted fast enough she probably would have easily dodged the incoming attack, this thing wasn't human but she wasn't either; but before her mind fully processed that she was being attacked her head had already left her body and was being thrown across the room.

…

…

...

"...Shit, this thing is strong. Better flee," the neko spoke as her head was currently in mid-air and about to hit the floor at any moment, seemingly not bothered by the fact she had been decapitated in a matter of seconds the headless body of Naki quickly jumped up and grabbed the head before making a hole through the wall of the room with a single kick and disappearing into the night.

The boy lay at the same spot he had been at for the past few seconds, eyes widened from pure fear. When the thing with red eyes appeared he felt something that he hadn't felt with the cat lady... and as soon as the red eyes turned to look at him every single part in his body was screaming at him to run away and get the hell out of there.

But he couldn't move, his legs had given up on him. The red eyes got closer, bigger, brighter with every step the monster took towards him and the boy couldn't think... to be honest they didn't look like eyes, they looked more like two orbs of red light that held no emotion whatsoever.

In a couple of more seconds the beast was only a few inches away from him. The boy closed his eyes, figuring it would now finish what the other one had started... but instead of his head being sliced off the boy was surprised that two arms held him in a loving embrace...

He could feel some liquid spilling from them and onto his clothes, most likely blood. The boy could feel the beast get closer to his ear and softly whisper into them some words,

"Are you okay, little brother?"

**_?_**

**"****RILEY!"**

"GAAH!"

Riley fell off his bed and onto the wooden floor of his room, his head taking most of the damage as he awoke from his deep sleep by the sudden shout. Immediately getting up Riley's onyx black eyes scanned all over his small room before they fell onto **_her._**

Standing a few feet away with an innocent smile on her face and hands crossed behind her back stood Mordred, her ruby red eyes looking up at the older male as she awaited some sort of response from Riley.

Normally the male would scream at anyone who dared wake him up... but a part of him was a bit thankful Mordred had screamed right into his ear and gotten him out of that dream. Surprisingly he didn't remember what it had been about,

"Riley, are you fully awake yet?"

"Uh..." the male paused for a moment to let out a loud yawn before continuing, "Yeah, I am now"

"Good!" Mordred clapped her hands in delight, the young girl looked oddly happy, "So you have 10 minutes to get dressed and do all your morning business! After those 10 minutes are over I expect to see you at the guild hall," with that she exited through the only door in the room before disappearing into the building.

Riley groaned in annoyance," Oh yeah, I'm working for this kid now,"

Mordred V. Harmonia; only 14 years old and already running an official mage guild. All that Riley knew about this kid was that she wasn't a native to Fiore... what country did she exactly from he didn't know, but her mage guild Victory Tree got officially approved by the Magic Council a few weeks back and was as of now looking for members.

After recalling everything he knew about the strange kid Riley had already finished putting on his uniform; it consisted of a white dress shirt which had a red tie hanging off from the neck area that went beneath his black button up vest. The male's bottom wear were some black khaki and a pair of brown dress shoes.

As of right now he was combing his ear-length chocolate hair. It was actually useless to even try to calm down his hair, many have tried it but none had ever succeeded. Riley's hair always looked almost as if he had just gotten out of bed... messily done and spikes going all over the place.

"Wild just like me!" Riley grinned as he put down the hairbrush. Many people would find themselves frustrated by a hair such like this one, but the black-eyed male was quite proud of it. In his view his hair perfectly displayed his rebel like nature, refusing to change to please people and never taking crap from anyone.

_'Then why are you working for a brat like Mor?'_

Riley rolled his eyes, "Life debt, that's why me," the nineteen-year old was very aware that talking to yourself wasn't normal, but there was no way in hell he was going to see someone about it.

'_I'm not you, fool!' _Unlike always in which the voice sounded so emotionless and stoic that it was impossible to tell, this time Riley found himself a bit surprised when the voice sounded a bit like a girl.

The light-caramel skin male stood there for a few seconds, an unreadable expression as he thought over what had just happened, "... Mor is driving me so nuts that I am starting to imagine her talking to me inside my head,"

Yup, that was it.

Riley decided to leave his room before Mordred threw some fit over him being late, so without anything else stopping him the male walked over towards the door, opened it, and began to make his way down the large corridor after closing his door behind him.

The thought of being part of a mage guild had always excited him ever since he was young; to be honest even if he was here because of the life debt he owed Mor Riley couldn't help but grow a tad happy whenever he walked into the guild hall.

It wasn't huge, but it seemed so elegant like something only the rich could afford. The walls were painted black with some gold designs streaming across them and the floor was made out of some very good quality wood.

There were 6 large tables in total, half of them where on the left side of the hall and the other three where on the right; each table could hold about nine people. The bar was located all the way at the end of the hall, and the entrance to the guild was on the opposite side. Fairly large windows located on a high spot on the walls let out some sunlight which lighted up the place.

Yup, happy.

"Hey waiter!" he heard Mor calling to him from the bar.

Any sign of Riley's good mood was gone as soon as the fourteen year old girl called out to him. Waiter, while it annoyed him whenever he was called by that name it was his job here in Victory Tree... a waiter, sometimes a cook or bartender. Because Riley didn't know any magic he couldn't become a member of Victory Tree, like Mor had asked when she saved his life. So instead he became... this.

The black eyed male walked over to where Mor was sitting down at before speaking, "What is it, Mor?"

Mor shook her head at that last part, "It's not Mor, mongrel! It's master, mistress, leader, take your pick!"

Riley sighed tiredly, "What is it... mistress?"

The fourteen year old nodded her head, "Better," she got up on her chair and patted Riley on the head, almost as if he was some kind of dog before speaking, "Anyways, have this place shining before our people arrive! You know, like every morning!"

"You say people as if you have a lot of members,"

"We do!"

"If that was true then we wouldn't be in danger of getting disbanded by lack of members," Riley reminded the young guild mistress of the news the officer from the magic council had brought in yesterday, "We need at least 10 before the end of the week,"

Mor groaned in annoyance as soon as she was reminded about that, "Yeah..." she seemed a bit troubled for a few seconds, but any sign of that was gone in a matter of moments, "Anyways, get to work Riley!" with that the young teen got off her chair and made her way to her office.

Riley grabbed a nearby broom and began to sweep the floor, yup he was janitor too. Luckily nobody would be arriving in a while... or that's what he hoped.


	2. The First

**What did the cow say to the chicken? Nothing.**

**Ignore that.**

January 31st, Victory Tree Guild Hall

"Riley do this, Riley do that!" Riley rambled on, since nobody had arrived yet and Mor was in her office doing who-knows-what the nineteen year old decided to take this chance to release some... inner stress while he broomed. Just like every morning, it had gotten to the point where this became a must do before everyone arrived.

Mordred made sure to overwork Riley everyday no matter what; since he was the only staff at Victory Tree Riley needed to get rations whenever they ran out, attend to the members with whatever they wanted, clean up after they left, and a whole bunch of other stuff he didn't even want to think about. It was tiresome, but he couldn't complain to Mordred or anyone... Riley got paid very well, a bit too much for being just staff actually, but he figured that his good pay had to do with the fact he was the only worker in the guild.

While working at Victory Tree still worn him out things had been a lot worst in the beginning... when he barely just arrived at the guild and Mor immediately asked him to start working Riley didn't even know how to do half the things right; but after a few weeks of working the nineteen year old finally got the hang of it and in rhythm with his daily tasks. This is why Riley was sure that the worst was over...

_'Should've stay with your sister,' a_ snobby sounding girly voice spoke up in his mind.

Upon hearing voice speak up, Riley began to frown lightly, "I prefer this a million times over that," he stated bluntly, pausing his brooming at the end of that sentence.

_'You lived with luxury, had everything you could want,' _the voice began to list off the many things he had before coming to this guild, '_and not to forget, your sister is a-' _

"I don't care," Riley cut in before the voice could finish, shaking his head in disagreement "Don't care! Not a single bit," he repeated, forgetting for a slight moment to pay attention to his surroundings.

Seemingly ignoring the waiter, the voice continued to speak, '_Compared to now, I say things went better for you back home,'_

Riley sighed in annoyance, he was getting tired of... himself? Imaginary Mordred? It didn't sound a thing like her, nor himself, so who the hell was he talking with now?

"You know... you really are annoyi-"

"Who are you talking with, Riley?" a voice suddenly cut in before Riley had the chance to finish his sentence.

"Whaa!" out of surprise Riley yelled out and jumped up into the air slightly, the sudden shock caused the worker to drop his broom on the floor – but that was the least of his worries. He had been so focused with winning the argument against... the voice...? Yeah, the voice; anyways he had put so much focus into winning that he hadn't noticed someone walk into the guild.

Turning around to see who walked onto him speaking to himself, the waiter came face-to-face with a light caramel skinned female that was around his age who was a bit shorter than himself. Navy blue eyes looked up at Riley with a questionable look while the freckled girl had one eyebrow cocked up, all at the same time Julianna Bethany tapped the wooden floor with one of her high thigh, black boots while she awaited an answer from the Riley, who seemed to have blacken out or something as he wasn't saying anything.

Her hands were placed on the hips of her grape-purple dress which reached down all the way to her knees, along with small slits on both sides of the clothing piece which stopped at her upper thigh; the dress had long sleeves which had small, dark grey fur cuffs at the end of them and four perfectly placed black buttons on the chest area. A black belt was around the female's waist, allowing the dress to hug her hourglass figure more. Right now her collarbone length hair was held back by a black headband, but she had the front and right side bang left out.

Riley's dazed-like state lasted for a couple more moments before he completely processed the situation... a girl was talking to him.

"Oh... Julianna..."

"Yup," she started to grin, revealing her sharp canines.

Riley started to grow noticeably nervous, his whole body was shaking and legs started to wobble slightly, almost as if they would give out at any moment, "I-i-i wa-as just talki-ing wi-with... myself?" the nineteen year old tried to sound as casual as possible so he cursed himself for stuttering so much... but Riley couldn't help himself. He wasn't good with women, well to be honest that was an understatement; Riley was absolutely terrified of women, it didn't matter if they were good looking or not but just the mere thought of talking with one felt as if his life span was growing shorter by the second.

He had grown a bit used to them, key word BIT, as there was an unusually large amount of female members in the guild; but Riley tried to interact as little as possible with all the women of the Victory Tree, only talking to them if it was a really must or if Mor ordered it.

Apart from one individual who only knew of his phobia with women because of her magic, nobody knew of his situation. Not even Mordred.

Julianna had stopped tapping on the floor by now as a long, uncomfortable pause filled the small space between the two. The black-haired girl seemed to be thinking over something, probably on why Riley seemed so nervous and sweating bucket-loads of sweat... like usual, or at least when she talked with him. Julianna couldn't lie, it was a bit uncomfortable whenever she had to talk with him because things always ended up this way...

"Kay," finding nothing wrong with the answer given Julianna replied in a nonchantly tone, not even suspecting that Riley was actually talking with another him Julianna told the waiter if he could get her some sweets before going over to one of the tables, sitting down, and awaiting for their mistress to show up. In all honesty she was a bit uncomfortable being at the guild so early, she was more of one of those late risers after all. But she had barely gotten any sleep last night... mostly due because she had been thinking over Bael again.

Julianna was startled a bit when Riley suddenly appeared out of nowhere and threw a bag full of sweets onto the spot right in front of her on the table; the sight of the candy-filled bag caused her to smile. Julianna reached into the large bag with one of her hands to grab some of the sweets before taking off the wrappers and throwing the candy into her mouth, having no problem chewing all the different sweets as a mix of flavors began to burst in her mouth.

After a while of chewing some sweets her navy blue eyes glanced over to Riley, who walked over to where the broom had fallen, picked it up, and had begun brooming again seemingly without a care in the world; in all honestly she didn't know much about this guy, even if he cooked, kept the guild clean, and pretty much kept it together all by himself when everyone else was out. That's probably why Julianna always attempted to make some sort of conversation with him, but if he didn't feel comfortable she didn't mind; Julianna was a laidback type person, and preferred to simply go with the flow of things (at times) so she figured when Riley felt comfortable with her, he would be the one to start the conversation this time around.

Of course Riley had no such intentions.

_'I can feel her staring at me...'_ Riley thought grimly.

A few minutes passed with nothing much going on as peaceful silence filled the guild hall, Riley kept brooming the same spot for half an hour while Julianna would grab some new treat from the bag, seemingly enjoying the flavor of each and every one as a pleased smile would form on her lips.

Julianna was about to attempt some other conversation with Riley, finding the current atmosphere a bit boring, even if Riley would most likely end up all flustered again she found his reactions slightly amusing, when all of the sudden the guild doors flew open as an average sized male wearing a white tuxedo walked in, startling both Riley who was brooming some imaginary dust and Julianna, who had a piece of candy in her mouth.

Dark purple eyes glared at the two people in the guild hall for a few seconds, seemingly inspecting them from head to toe to see who they were before going over to one of the tables located farthest from the two and plopping himself down on a chair. The male brushed away some of his mossy, green hair to the side as he yawned out loud from the slight, slight feeling of drowsiness; Mordred had specifically asked him to arrive early, which is the only real reason why he wasn't one of the last ones to arrive like usual.

_'Such a pesky brat,'_ Chaos Ouro frowned lightly at the thought, he wasn't sure if pesky was even a word but it fit his guild mistress very well... seriously, apart from staff like that waiter who's-name-escapes-him-because-he-could-care-less who woke up this early?

Apparently, Julianna could also be an early riser.

While the mage was lost in thought Julianna got up, grabbed her bag of sweets and walked over to where Chaos had sat at, walking past Riley who seemed to tense up for a moment before he continued with his brooming. Chaos didn't seem to notice Julianna as she got closer and sat down on the chair right across his own while still holding the large bag of sweets,

"Hey," the mage greeted the male casually while chewing on some gum, "What's up?"

When he heard the simple greeting a light frown began to form on his face, he couldn't help but feel slightly annoyed that he hadn't noticed this chick suddenly walk up to him "What do_ you_ want?" Chaos spoke in a calm tone with a slight hint of coldness to it, obviously he wasn't a chatter.

"Nothing, just wanted to talk," Julianna smirked lightly while placing her head on her left hand for support, blowing a bubble as soon as she was comfortable before popping it with her lips.

The mage across from Julianna adjusted his black tie before speaking, "If you want to talk, I'm afraid you're with the wrong guy," Chaos firmly said, hoping she would leave him alone.

"Here, have some candy," Julianna spoke casually, seemingly ignoring that last part she held out the bag so that Chaos could grab one of numerous treats inside it, "Just one though," she firmly stated that last part, looking at the mage across from her with an accusing look.

"No thanks," with one hand Chaos pushed the bag full of sweets away, "I'm not particularly fond of sweets,"

"Awww, come on~!" Julianna sang out as she held the bag closer to his face, her smirk growing larger while she did, "One piece of candy won't do ya any harm,"

Chaos seemed to grow irritated when his guild mate suddenly pushed the bag onto his face, "I'm fine, really,"

"Okay," Julianna said in a defeated tone, seemingly given up on trying to convince the mossy haired mage... that is still she reached into her bag and grabbed two pieces of candy. The female mage looked at them for a few moments before laying them in front of Chaos on the table,

"Alright, you can have **_two_**," Julianna spoke cautiously, "But that's my final offer,"

Chaos looked down at the two pieces of candy on the spot in front of him, an unreadable expression on his face as he looked at the sweets. It was pretty obvious Julianna had given him the worst ones out of that bag, they didn't look really good from just looking at the wrapper alone... in fact, if Chaos read that right, one was fish flavored?

"... No way in hell," irritation oozed out of his tone much clearly while frowning lightly.

Julianna simply smirked wider, "Gosh, you're a grumpy pants aren't ya?" she teased while chuckling lightly, she really wasn't one to get rid of so easily.

"..." Chaos only glared at her.

Riley couldn't help but sweat drop at the conversation that was going on at the table, chuckling lightly in amusement. After realizing that the spot he had been brooming for so long couldn't get cleaner even if he tried, Riley had put the broom away and walked towards the bar to prepare it for when the rest of the members arrived.

If he remembered correctly, both Julianna and Chaos were one of the first members to join this guild, but despite that this was the only time he's seen the two have an actual conversation with each other; a part of him couldn't help but wonder why.

Chaos, while usually a bit of an asshole, seemed to take his attitude a bit easier on women... from what he's seen anyway. That's probably why Julianna was still pestering him to grab some candy and hadn't walked away by now... but then again he didn't know how she would react in such situation if Chaos were to treat her like she treats everyone that isn't a female.

Both mages seemed to continue their little argument, Julianna would attempt to give him more candy and Chaos would calmly reject the offer as his annoyance began to get even clearer on both his face and tone, which the black haired woman seemed to either not notice or care (Riley would go with the latter).

Riley's ears perked up when he heard the large, wooden guild doors open up, much softer this time compared to the way Chaos had pushed them open. Speaking of which it seemed those two didn't notice the doors open up. Riley turned around to face the entrance and opened his mouth to greet whoever it was, even if it was one of the female members Riley could manage this much... he's trained himself to sound normal whenever greeting women in this simple way.

"Welcome to Victo-" the waiter spoke in his usual bored tone before catching glimpse of who was entering the guild hall.

_Fiddlesticks._

The bartender immediately dived onto the floor right behind the bar before he could be spotted, only letting out a soft shout when he hit his head on... Riley wasn't sure what he hit his head on, but he didn't really care at the moment.

As Echo walked into the guild hall one, wide amber eye looked over towards the table where two of her guild mates sat, seemingly arguing about something... well, actually Julianna seemed to be enjoying it while Chaos was clearly annoyed by the whole thing.

Echo Hadley was an average looking woman, in fact if it wasn't for the long scar running through her right eye which caused it's color to seem muted the mage wouldn't stand out very much, which she was fine with. The eighteen year old's soft, light blonde hair reached down to her shoulders and had small curls at the end, which would jump up softly with each step she took into the guild.

Today she was wearing a plain, white-shirt with a pair of blue jeans over her slender, slightly curvy physique. Like usual she had a small scarf around her neck, which was brightly colored in a mix of purple and blue with some white tennis shoes below, with the laces matching the mixed colors of her scarf.

The blonde could have sworn she heard Riley from the bar, but when her amber eye glanced towards the spot he wasn't there.

Echo couldn't help but sigh softly while she went over to the table right across the one Julianna and Chaos were sitting at and sat down; ever since Mor had recruited Riley to be staff in the guild she's always felt this incredibly uncomfortable with a slight, very slight hint of fear coming from him whenever a women was around. To support her idea she even used her magic to make sure, and there was no doubt Riley had some phobia towards women.

Ever since then she's tried to help in some way... but ever since she first tried to help him Riley's been able to get away from her every, single, time. Echo could easily find him if she used her magic, the blonde knew that very well, but she didn't want force Riley into anything... even if she did care for him very much just like all her other guild mates.

"My baby!"

Echo froze in her chair when she heard the very familiar calling and almost instantly after, felt a pair of small hands hug her from behind. Mordred had her silver hair tied up into a bun, so it wouldn't get in the way of her eyesight like it usually did, and was currently snuggling against Echo, "How are you this fine day, my sweet Echo?"

"I-i'm fine! Guild Mistress," she stammered out while blushing lightly.

The sudden scene of affection from their guild mistress caught both Chaos and Julianna's attention, while Chaos rolled his eyes the sweet-lover who was across from his smirked, obviously amused from the whole scene happening right now. It wasn't anything new, everyone in the guild already knew Mordred loved to smother Echo with affectionate whenever the fourteen year old had the chance.

Why was Echo so special to Mordred? Well, that was obvious.

Mordred smiled brightly before pulling away, "As the first member to ever join my guild, I just can't help hugging you my sweet!" the young guild mistress couldn't help herself, she just loved treating Echo as if she was her very own baby... even if the blonde was older then herself.

Echo didn't mind the affectionate Mordred tended to give her, in fact she would often return the action back with some affection of her own, what she didn't feel comfortable about was that it always caught everyone's attention whenever she did it in public... luckily only Chaos, Julianna, and Riley (sorta) were here at the moment so it wasn't as bad. Then again there wasn't much guild members missing at the moment... only four had yet to arrive.

Out of nowhere for the third time that day the wooden guild doors were opened, managing to catch everyone's attention - even Riley took a peak from his hiding spot behind the bar to see who it was; Riley wasn't really a curious-type but the waiter needed to know who was coming into the guild so that he could decide his next move... stay or flee into town? He was sure they were out of blueberries, so he could probably use that as an excuse to leave... well, actually Mor wasn't really fond of them so the ones that had run out had been his own personal stash.

A whole year's worth gone in one night...

While the waiter was lost in thought two females had walked into the guild and were looking around the hall, one of them was surprised to see most of the late risers here so early while the other one seemed annoyed from everyone looking at them...

"Uh... hey everyone," ocean blue eyes looked towards everyone in the guild, though they missed Riley who immediately went back to hiding once her eyes were about to land on him. She had wavy, bright salmon hair that reached down all the way to her back. Right now Irisviel Grace or "Iris" for short, had on a white kimono with some gold on it along with a short skirt and a small, red scarf around her neck; to finish off her outfit Iris had some red boots with some brown on the tip.

The women right next to Iris stood a tad taller than herself and seemed a lot more casually dressed then her friend.,

"... What ya'll lookin' at?" the red head who stood right beside her shouted out, her mint green eyes looking at everyone at guild with an accusing look... as if they did something wrong. Aria's black boots stomped the floor while she walked in, slowly followed behind by Iris' quiet footsteps. The white stockings she had on along with the knee pads were fully exposed because of her red skirt, which had a loose black belt holding it up and a rose pendant attached to it. The mage tucked her hands into the side pockets of her dark brown leather jacket, which was left opened revealing the black t-shirt below that had some random white paint on it.

Upon hearing Aria everyone had their own reaction;

Chaos looked away while rolling his dark purple eyes, "Whatever," he didn't really care about those two, from what he's seen none of the two were really that strong so as far as he knew... they were just background characters.

Julianna grinned upon seeing the two females before getting up and walking towards them, following behind her guild mistress who had rushed towards the two mages a few seconds earlier then herself. Iris was fun to tease, but she was definitely a lot fonder of Aria.

Echo got up and walked towards the bar, deciding she wanted to prepare herself something since Riley was nowhere in sight. These two were one of the newer members to have joined the guild and as of right now only had two weeks here so far, so while Echo was tempted to make some conversation with them to get to know the two girls better... Echo decided she would do that some other day, some other time.

Riley attempted to find some way to escape this guild without anyone catching sight of him... while the waiter tried to come up with some strategy to flee the building he didn't even notice that Echo was walking towards the bar.

When the guild mistress finally reached Iris and Aria, Mordred smiled brightly at the two female mages, "Welcome back, Iris and Aria!"

Iris smiled down at her guild mistress, "Thank you, Master," the pink-haired mage spoke in a kind, soft tone before bowing lightly out of respect.

Aria chucked lightly while nodding her head, not really giving a response to the greeting of her guild mistress. Unlike Iris the red head still couldn't get over the idea of getting ordered around by some kid yet... it wasn't because Mordred was bossy or anything, but Aria only really joined this guild because she needed some jewel at the time shortly after meeting Iris, who constantly talked about becoming a member of Victory Tree because... well, Aria kind of forgot. But from what she remembered the reason Iris joined was something about a debt her parents owed Mordred, Aria didn't really know the details...

While Aria seemed to be lost in thought Julianna nodded in approval, seemingly quite happy to see the two girls finally arrive. Julianna patted Mordred's back before looking down at the young mistress, "We're growing bigger as a guild, huh mistress?" Julianna looked down at Mordred, a small smirk forming on her lips.

Upon hearing that the young teen started to chuckle a tad nervously, suddenly getting reminded of the warning that magic council officer gave her, "Y-yeah, it seems so Jemma,"

After getting bored of thinking so much Aria walked past the two other females and turned to look at the job board, like the red head usually did whenever she arrived at the guild. As soon as her mint green eyes landed on board the mage couldn't help but grin from seeing the dozens of requests hanging off the board, "We've gotten' a ton of new job requests!"

While Aria ran towards the job board to see the new jobs available to take, Iris remained behind and smiled softly at her friend's reaction, "Err, yeah, seems so Aria,"

Upon hearing Aria sudden announcement all of the mages walked towards the board, most of them a tad surprised that they just now noticed the new requests. It had been a long time since they've seen so many new jobs to take, in fact just yesterday there was only one request available and that had to do with something about finding some lost cat...

Mordred was pretty sure that job was long gone, since she saw one of her members take it last night before leaving, "Yeah, that's one of the things I wanted to tell you guys," further explaining that an officer from the Magic Council had delivered these new job requests to the guild just yesrerdat night, she asked if everyone could hold off choosing a job till the last two members arrived.

"It's 'bout time," Aria muttered while looking for a job she could take with Iris, the red head really wanted some jewel to pay the apartment she was renting along with her salmon-haired friend.

Standing right beside the red head Chaos skimmed through the job requests, more interested in finding ones were the pay was high or were extremely difficult to accomplish. The pale-skinned male couldn't help but feel slightly disappointed with his guild mates as none of these people seemed to realize Victory Tree wasn't even on the map of Beach City... in fact the former guild before Victory Tree who had been missing for a decade now was still on the map, annoyingly enough...

While Echo couldn't really go on a job by herself because of her magic the blonde was still curious about what new requests were now available, from first glance most of them seemed very good paid. There were a few local ones, but a lot of the jobs required to travel far away she noted.

"Hey, Echo,"

The blonde in question turned her head slightly to look at Julianna, who had called out to her, "What is it?" Echo asked, tilting her head to the side a bit.

"How about we go on a job together?" Julianna asked while placing her hands on her hips, a small smirk began to form on the black-haired girl's lips. She didn't know exactly what kind of magic Echo used, but Julianna does remember the blonde mentioning something about it being more of a support type. Julianna didn't really mind, after all going on a job with her could be fun.

Echo widened her eyes at the sudden offer from Julianna, not really expecting to hear that from her guild mate "Err... I don't really have a lot of offensive spells though..."

"Don't matter," Julianna grabbed Echo's shoulder before giving her a thumbs up, "Just leave the fighting to me,"

Echo glanced down at the floor when Julianna placed a hand on one of her shoulders, "Are you sure...?"

Julianna nodded, the smirk not once disappearing off her face.

"If you are... I guess I don't mind," Echo finally said in a defeated tone.

"Alright!" Julianna cheered before looking at the requests, she needed to find the perfect one to take Echo with. It couldn't be too hard where the two would have a lot difficulty accomplishing it, but it couldn't be easy enough were it would be bore-fest.

Mordred smiled softly at the scene of her mages all crowded around the job board. The guild mistress had... well let's just say Mordred had convinced the delivery-guy from the Magic Council with some jewel to hand them some more requests then originally planned. Those old farts kept a numerical rank of all the guilds in Fiore, that much she knew, the higher the rank of the guild the more job requests said guild would get, most of them being much better paid and difficult to accomplish.

Was subordinating an agent from the council illegal? Yeah, it sure as hell was. But if they just kept giving her guild so many baby jobs... then they would never go up the ranks.

While everyone was looking at the board and Mordred was lost in thought, trying to convince herself that what she had done was for the best of the guild and that this would be the last time she would ever do such an act, Riley had gotten out of his hiding spot. Seeing this as the perfect chance the waiter was now going to attempt to escape the guild unseen... later coming back with some blueberries.

Just as Riley was about to leave the guild, only a few steps away from the entrance, the large wooden doors opened, causing the waiter to freeze on spot. Riley mentally cursed whoever decided to enter the guild at that same moment he was about to escape, but was also thankful that whoever opened it softly and thus didn't catch the attention of everyone. When the person started to enter the guild Riley realized it was one of the male members, as the figure was a lot taller than himself.

The mage that had walked in had mid-length, jet black hair with some flame colored highlights on it and kept his hair messily done but unlike Riley's hair that made him seem like he just woke up, the taller male seemed to have kept it like that on purpose as it looked much more controlled. Dark orange orbs glanced down at Riley, who stood a few inches away all froze up while he thanked the heavens it wasn't a girl, but Aestus.

Aestus Renatus had a dark orange tank top, which was clearly visible because the gray sleeveless hoodie and the black, leather vest that Aestus had over it were unzipped. Aestus' bottom wear consisted of a pair of dark brown pants, with some black boots covering his feet and two matching colored fingerless gloves on his hands. The tanned male's lean muscular build was more than noticeable, even under his clothing along with the fire tribal tattoos on his forearms.

The two males starred at each other for a few moments, seemingly nobody noticing Aestus arrival yet before Riley tried to act as if nothing was wrong, "Welcome back to Victory Tree, Aestus,"

"...Uh, thanks" the tanned male spoke in a deep voice, scratching the back of his head for a moment the tall mage walked past Riley and towards the job board, suddenly noticing most of his guild mates all crowded up in that corner.

Upon arriving at the board the tanned mage noticed many job requests hanging off the board, all which seemed a lot better than the usual stuff Victory Tree got. Aestus couldn't lie, he was kind of glad that there was now better paid jobs to choose from and that he wouldn't have to be cleaning up the local park of any litter or finding some lost cat. Speaking of which both of those said jobs had been taken oddly enough... though when Aestus looked around the tall male noted that the one who had taken them wasn't here yet.

"Hey there big guy," Aestus suddenly noticed Julianna patting his back while looking up at him, a small smirk on her lips.

Aestus smiled softly and waved at the shorter female, "Hi Julianna," the friendly giant spoke in a cheerful tone, giving her a light wave of his own.

"You wouldn't want to go on a job with us ladies, would ya?" Julianna offered the male while nodding towards Echo, she hadn't seen him around the guild earlier so the mage figured he must have just gotten here. Aestus was cool enough, unlike Chaos grumypants, so why not invite him to go on a job?

Aestus rubbed the back of his head, "Sure, why not,"

Why not indeed.

Julianna grinned lightly before looking back at Echo, "Hear that Echo? We'll be having an s-class come along with us,"

Echo crossed her arms before cocking up an eyebrow, "Didn't mistress say the ranks she gave us are only temporarily though...?"

The black haired women seemed to think about that for a moment, suddenly being reminded that Mordred had given those ranks sort of-random and that they would have an actual test to determine their rank later on in the year... when she got her stuff together.

Meh,

"Julianna..,?"

"Oh," the women was taken out of her thoughts by the sudden call, "Well, you got to admit Aestus and myself are still pretty strong, so no worries! Right?"

Upon hearing Julianna's words Echo smiled softly before repeating, "Right,"

Meanwhile with Mordred, who had just now noticed Aestus walk into the guild, was just about to greet the tall male when all of the sudden out of the corner of her eye she noticed Riley at the entrance of the guild trying to walk out or something. Curious on what the waiter was doing, Mordred jogged lightly towards Riley in which the male in question seem to notice as he halted any more movement. When she finally caught up to Riley, Mordred rested her hands on her still undeveloped hips before the 14 – year old shook her head in disapproval, "Riley, where are you going?"

"... Uh," Riley seemed to think of his answer for a few moments before responding, "I'm going to get some blueberries, seeing as we ran out,"

"No," Mordred quickly responded, a frown starting to form on her face, "I hate blueberries,"

Riley figured she would say that, but the waiter already had some plan in mind for the occasion, "Yeah, but Perri likes them." Riley reminded his guild mistress, who looked a bit surprised upon hearing the response, "So I figured as someone who puts her guild members before herself... you wouldn't mind if I went to get them for her,"

…

…

…

"Tsk, fine!" Mordred puffed up her cheeks before walking away, she really hated when Riley made sense.

With Mordred's approval Riley proudly walked out of the guild. You've ever seen someone walk as if they won the lottery or something? Well, this is how Riley looked like at the moment. Riley would make sure to take his sweet time with this task so that he could kill as much as time as possible till now and when it was time for everyone to leave.

A couple of minutes after Riley had left, which nobody apart from Mordred seemed to notice, a girl with long, thick black hair that was tied into a loose braid with some small flowers placed along it walked into the guild as her coal-colored eyes which seemed almost cat-like looked around, quickly landing on the small crowd at the job board.

Perri Shockwal had a healthy complexion, but wasn't completely tanned; she had a very feminine physique with some clear curves and a decent bosom size, but with some muscle to it too. Right now the mage had on a sky-blue tank top with a black, waist-high skirt that reached down all the way to her ankles which clearly let you see the rainbow stripped socks and her blue combat boots.

The eighteen year old had joined a few days later after Iris and Aria, though the way she got into Victory Tree was a bit... odd to say in the least... Perri had somehow managed to sneak into the guild in the middle of the night and when Mordred found her the following morning Perri was out cold on the floor, with more than half of the years' worth of blueberries gone. After waking her up Perri quickly began to apologize to Mordred for eating so much (even if those blueberries didn't really belong to her, but Riley, who loved blueberries) and the young guild mistress then realized she could use this in her favor, so Mordred made Perri join the guild.

Mordred wasn't going to lie, she was pretty darn proud of herself.

Perri was carrying a large, fat clearly worn out book in her left hand. Perri seemed to be in a pretty good mood at the moment, as the young women had a small smile on her lips, though nobody seemed to notice her except Mordred. While everyone else kept looking at possible jobs they could take the young teen quickly rushed towards the older female, and with a bubbly tone Mordred said, "Hey Perri! How the job go?"

"It went fine, thank you for asking mistress," Perri answered with a small tone, "It took me a bit of effort, but I found the cat,"

Surprisingly it hadn't been as hard as the mage originally thought, it took her a few hours into the night but eventually she managed to find the cat in some dumpster... doing something rather unpleasing to walk into with another cat.

Perri kept walking till sitting down on one of the tables, Mordred followed her so the young guild mistress sat right next to her on another chair, "...Mittens was a guy, apparently," the mage shivered lightly when she finished the sentence.

Mordred couldn't help but giggle, causing Perri to sweat drop at the act. When the young guild mistress finally managed to stop herself she patted the older female's back, "Sorry," the silver-haired girl smiled sheepishly.

Perri decided to change the subject, "So why is everyone at the job board?" she tilted her head slightly to the side while looking at the red-eye teen.

"We got new job offers," Mordred answered with a smile, "You could go check them out for yourself, if you want,"

"Nah," Perri kindly rejected the offer, "I think I'll wait a bit... I just want to finish reading this book while drinking a blueberry smoothie," yup, those two combined made a sanctuary-like atmosphere for Perri.

Mordred chuckled nervously, "Well...we ran out of blueberries, since you kind of ate the rest of them yesterday," the young mistress paused for a moment before she continued, "But don't worry about it," Mordred patted the older female's back gently, "Riley went out to get some,"

"Oh good," Perri seemed pleased to hear the news, she felt a bit bad for finishing up all the blueberries but... it was really hard to feel anything like that when you were around Mordred, who seemed to never get mad and always in a happy mood.

Mordred remained silent for a few moments, wondering if Perri had anything else to inform her before getting up from her chair, "Well, now that you're here... I'll go make my announcements,"

The older female blinked for a moment at her guild mistress' sudden statement but nodded, Perri was curious on what Mordred was about to say. The black-haired woman watched the young mistress walk away and get on top of the bar, in which she then proceeded to whistle to catch everyone's attetion.

Upon hearing the call everyone who had been at the job board turned to look at their guild mistress, most wondering what she was about to say and some just wanting her to finish up as quickly as possible so they could go on the job they had chosen.

"Well... as you may have noticed, our guild has been given more job offers than usual," Mordred started with the most obvious news, "So I hope you all use this rare chance to prove to those old farts at the Magic Council that we're the best guild in Fiore!"

"Hell yeah!" Aria shouted from the crowd.

"We won't let you down, mistress!" Julianna grinned widely while giving the silver-haired girl a thumbs up.

Chaos rolled his eyes, "It's about time, Mor,"

Mordred's left eye seemed to twitch at the nickname, but apart from that she didn't show any signs of being annoyed by it, "Well... onto the next subject," this time the young guild mistress reached into the pockets of her long skirt, seemingly trying to find something before pulling out a piece of folded paper.

Everyone in the guild seemed curious on what could possibly be on that piece of paper as a small pause filled the hall for a couple seconds while Mordred unfolded the paper all the way and when she did, the silver-haired fourteen year old smirked widely, "I am pleased to announce that... I have created our guild mark!"

Mordred didn't give anybody a chance to react to the sudden news as she flipped the paper and revealed the guild mark that all her mages would be wearing from today forth... the symbol of their strength, the mark that would represent her guild and mages-

…

…

…

"This is a joke, right?" Chaos stated out bluntly, a slightly horrified look on his face.

On the piece of paper was a rather childishly drawn tree with a small, golden crown on top of it. In short, the drawing seemed to have been made by someone with no art skill whatsoever...

Mordred puffed up her cheeks upon hearing Chaos, "No, this isn't a joke," she replied in a totally serious tone, "I put all my effort into this drawing, jerk!"

"...I'm not going to let you put that on me," Chaos argued, stepping back a bit as if Mordred was going to jump at him or something.

Aria was rubbing the back of her head, seemingly also displeased by the announcement, "I gotta agree with grumpy there,"

"Aria!" Iris suddenly shouted in a hushed tone, a bit shocked to hear that from the red head, "Don't say that!"

"My name ain't grumpy," Chaos said out of nowhere.

"What? It's the truth!" Aria protested while crossing her arms, completely ignoring Chaos and giving him no acknowledgment whatsoever.

'

"My name ain't grumpy," Chaos repeated in the same blunt tone, a light frown forming on his face as he forgot for a moment about the badly-drawn guild mark.

Upon hearing the protest Mordred seemed to have gotten slightly depressed, she had spoken the truth and had put all her effort into drawing the guild mark... yeah she wasn't the greatest artist but Mordred had drawn the guild mark with what she thought would best fit Victory Tree in mind.

While the three mages argued on and everyone else kept watching them, one mage in the crowd managed to notice Mordred's sadden mood. Echo had her gaze set on Mordred and a light frown began to form on her face before walking towards her, making sure not to bump into any of the other members before coughing, making sure to get her guild mistress' and everyone else's attention.

"... I like it," Echo suddenly stated while looking at the red-eyed fourteen year old, the blonde rolled up her sleeve at the end, "In fact, if possible, I would like to get it stamped on me right now, mistress"

Everyone, Mordred included, seemed to be shocked from hearing Echo's words. Though the surprised-state quickly passed for Mordred as she jumped down from the bar with glee with a stamper on her hand, which she seemed to have gotten out of nowhere, before using it to stamp the Victory Tree guild mark on Echo's shoulder which was colored yellow.

As soon as she finished Mordred hugged the blonde around the stomach, "Thank you... Echo,"

The blonde didn't seem to mind everyone's attention on her and simply, returned the hug with her own, "It's no problem... mistress,"

"Mistress, what about me?" Julianna suddenly patted Mordred's back while smiling goofily at the fourteen year old, "I love it too! Unlike Chaos Grumpypants here,"

"My name ain't Chaos Grumpypants," Chaos bluntly corrected, he crossed his arms while glaring at Julianna.

The female in question simply stuck out her tongue, "Whatever ya say, Grumpypants,"

Chaos was about to correct her again when he realized it was futile to do so, so instead he huffed before walking over to Mordred, who was already stamping on Julianna's guild mark on her thigh, the part where the slits of her dress started and where her boots ended. While passing by everyone else, who seemed to be just looking at the two women Chaos couldn't help but feel as if he was going to regret this decision of his... far, far into the future.

The mossy haired male reluctantly asked Mordred to put the Victory Tree mark on him, after stating where and what color the young guild mistress seemed rather pleased with herself.

Aeustus walked up to Mordred so that he could get his own mark just as Chaos was walking away, he didn't really care how the guild mark looked unlike a few individuals... the mage simply wanted to get this done and over with so that he could go on the job he and Julianna had picked out.

"Could you... come down to my level a bit?" Mordred asked the tall male, having to turn her head all the way up to even look at him.

Aestus chuckled lightly before getting on his knees, "Yeah, sorry about that,"

When Mordred finished putting Aestus guild mark it was the turn of Aria and Iris, which consisted mostly of the pink-haired girl pulling her red headed friend, who seemed to struggle till the very end before Mordred managed to stamp the guild mark on her.

Perry was the last one to get her guild mark, she wasn't in much of a hurry like the others so the mage had decided to wait till everyone else was done.

"Where doyou want it Perri?" Mordred asked while looking at the young woman, stamper in hand.

Perri pointed to her left thigh, she didn't need to move her skirt up as it had a small slit on the exact part she wanted it at, "Here, please"

After stamping the guild mark on Perri's thigh yellow, the young woman thanked her mistress before walking back to the table she had been sitting at.

Mordred was about to shout something but after a quick look around the guild, she suddenly remembered Riley had left to get those... disgusting blueberries and that he wasn't here at the moment.

"What is it, mistress?" Julianna asked with an eyebrow cocked up, she had managed to notice Mordred's sudden mood down.

The silver-haired girl crossed her arms over her chest, "Riley isn't here... I was hoping to get this guild mark stamping over with right now,"

"Riley?" Aestus questioned in a blunt tone with a slight hint of surprise in it, he hadn't expected to hear Mordred say that.

Upon hearing his guild mistress Chaos rolled his violet eyes, he was now sitting down at the same table as Perri and Aestus, who had sat down as it was the nearest one "Riley? You mean the waiter?" the suited male asked.

"It's Riley," Julianna corrected Chaos, "But yeah, him, any problem?"

Chaos glared at Julianna, "He's just staff though... not an actual member of-"

"Wrong," Mordred quickly cut in, "He's a member of this guild just like yourself, so he needs a guild mark too!" the young teen pouted out, glaring at Chaos while doing so.

"... as if I care," Chaos ran a hand through his hair before turning away, if Mordred wanted some other victim to wear this silly guild mark it was none of his business.

Almost as if that small conversation didn't happen Mordred clapped her hands together in glee before putting them up in the air, "Alright...i would like for everyone to please wait till tomorrow before going on any jobs," then she added that just for today, they could drink, eat, and pretty much just go wild to their heart's content in celebration of the many job requests and finally getting a guild mark.

"Where's that waiter when you need him..." Chaos groaned out, obviously annoyed that the only thing that guy was being paid to do he wasn't here for.

Riley wouldn't be back till the next morning... with a lot of explaining to do, but also with a new addition to Victory Tree...

**-and I'm going to end it here! Finished, finally. That took me quite a while to write because not only was I suffering from writer's block, I always have the most trouble with the beginning of stories... my mind just goes blank. Apart from that my life has been busy as hell...**

**No need to fear though, chapters will be coming out much sooner now! I'd say once a week, since my life has calmed down and I got the first official chapter done with now. But if not once a week, this story from now hopefully won't go two weeks without an update.**

**All current members of Victory Tree were introduced this chapter, the next couple of chapters will be pretty much mostly everyone on the jobs they chose and getting new recruits... then we will be moving to the first main action arc.**

**Again, sorry for very late release. Expect chapters to be this length and if not, longer.**

**Oh, and I am accepting one more female OC... though i'm looking for something specific here, so PM me if you are interested. If you want to submit any independent villains, just send one in and i'll see if I can fit them in the story or not. Also since i'm in the topic, I will post a form on my profile whenever I get to dark guilds and stuff, so you guys can send me some evil ocs.**

**Anyways that's all for me... now to work on my other SYOC stories (crazy me wanted to post a freaking Attack on Titan SYOC a few days ago...heh)**


	3. Mongrels

**Derp.**

February 1st, Beach City Train Station

Like planned yesterday Aestus, Julianna, and Echo were going on a job that, oddly enough, the blonde had picked in the end. The other two couldn't really find one that... interested them, to say in short so after a while of looking Echo picked a completely random job from the board and suggested it to her two teammates... it seemed they instantly loved it.

This would be their first job outside the city, which is why the reward didn't matter... but the fame they would be getting from it.

After celebrating the night away all three mages had left early, each one a bit later than some, before heading to their respective homes and sleeping till 6 am... again some a bit later than others. It took more or less an hour for everyone to get dressed up and arrive to the Beach City train station, which despite it being so early was already packed with people.

More or less half an hour passed since they got their tickets and the trio was pretty much just waiting for the train which would take them to...

…

"So, where are we going Julianna?" Aestus asked the shorter female, who stood right next to him.

Instead of the clothing he had worn yesterday Aestus was wearing a navy blue, long sleeved shirt which seemed to hug his lean and muscular figure. He had his hands tucked into the pockets of his loose, tanned colored pants while he calmly tapped the cement floor of the train station with his chocolate-colored shoes. The tall male wore a silver beanie, so most of his flame highlighted hair was hidden.

Julianna blinked for a moment at the sudden question. Much like Aestus she wore a different set of clothing, instead of her usual grape-purple dress the black haired woman now wore a lavender kimono which reached all the way down to her knees; just like the white ribbon the mage had around her waist it had floral designs all over. A pair of black, knee-length socks covered her long legs with some wooden sandals on her feet.

"...you heard him Echo, where is our fine group going to?" Julianna looked at the blonde, who was looking at the job sheet. To be honest she had kind of forgotten what place they would be going to, though Julianna managed to memorize what the job paid and pretty much the rest of the details oddly enough.

Echo didn't seem much different in terms of clothing, the blonde pretty much wore the same basic outfit with different colors, instead of the white t-shirt she had on yesterday Echo wore a red one with jeans that were lighter shade of blue below. The only change to her outfit was a pair of wood-brown colored combat boots.

Upon hearing the question the blonde looked around the sheet for a moment, "...Xiram Village, near the border of Eastern Fiore," Echo spoke while nodding, "We'll have to travel on foot though, as the train will only leave us at Fiore's Academy of Sorcery," as she put the paper away Echo made sure to add the walk wouldn't be too long, more or less it would take an hour and a half to reach the village from what she researched... Echo had asked Perri the night before if she could let her borrow a geography book, which the other female did with pleasure.

"Oh," Aestus replied lamely.

Julianna looked at the clock tower right in the middle of the square, noting that it would only be a few more minutes before their train arrived, "We'll be driving away some giants, right?"

Echo nodded, "Yeah, the village is small but they rely heavily on farming and the like," the group of giants came by every week to collect food, crops, livestock, and in some cases even women. The job didn't pay very well, which is probably why no other mages had taken it, but defeating a group of giants would surely bring some fame to the guild... right?

Aestus rubbed the back of his head, "Well, hopefully we can get a good fight out of this," the tall male added in, a small smile on his lips.

"I just want to get this over with," Julianna spoke tiredly before yawning out loud, this was the second time in a row she's woken up so early.

Echo glanced down at the concrete floor, "I just hope nobody gets hurt..." the blonde said solemnly.

Noticed her mood down, Julianna shook her head to drive the sleepiness away before patting the blonde's back and grinning, "You worry too much, Echo," the mage teased lightly, "They're just giants right? I'm sure Aestus could take care of 'em by himself if it came down to it,"

"You bet!" Aestus grinned goofily while looking at the blonde, "We'll be back to Beach City before mistress regrets letting you go with us," the tall male stated with a small chuckle, reminding Echo of the scene Mordred had caused when they passed by the guild this morning real quick.

Echo sweat dropped upon but at the same time giggled lightly at the thought of their mistress desperately trying to change her mind about going on this job, claiming that she wouldn't be able to go an hour without seeing her dear Echo's smile.

Julianna started to grin even wider, "See? You can stop being a worrywart!"

The blonde simply rolled her eyes while a small smile started to form on her lips, thinking for a slight moment that maybe she really did worry a bit too much sometimes... but the blonde still couldn't shake off this odd feeling, to be honest Echo had hoped her two companions turned down the job she had picked out. Echo had only grabbed it because she wanted to help out in picking out possible requests... she never expected them to like it.

There was just something she didn't like about it...

"By the way," Aestus suddenly spoke up, deciding that he should probably get this question out of the way, "What magic do you girls use?"

"Eh? You don't know?" Julianna blinked while looking at the tall male, "I think I told everyone in the guild at some point,"

"Same here," Echo chirped in.

Aestus smiled sheepishly while looking at the two females, "Well... I don't exactly memorize everyone's magic," he spoke a tad nervously.

Julianna simply chuckled lightly, "I use takeover" the mage spoke nonchantly.

Echo seemed to hesitate for a slight moment, which didn't go unnoticed by her two companions before speaking, "Empathy," before they could ask what that was, the blonde continued, "In short... I mainly focus on manipulating energies and emotions of others, some other stuff too," the blonde said lamely.

"Oh," just as he was about to explain what magic he used, Julianna beat him to the punch.

"Nuclear right?" Julianna said while looking at taller male for confirmation.

Aestus nodded.

The smaller female gave Aestus a thumbs up, "That's pretty cool, no wonder why mistress made you into an S-class!" the black haired mage exclaimed brightly.

Echo nodded, "Yeah," the blonde parroted.

At the sudden compliments the tall male's cheeks turned a bit red, though because of the lighting in the train station it wasn't very noticeable. Aestus tended to turn a bit nervous when he was around attractive women like Julianna, though it wasn't to say that Echo wasn't pretty or anything... but he always felt this strange sensation of calmness wash over him when he was around the smaller blonde, which is mainly why he's been able to keep his cool for so long...

Plus he needed to prove to his mistress that she had done the right thing in giving him the S-class title; it wasn't like Mordred doubted his abilities or anything but there was another S-class in the guild... and his warrior-like nature demanded him to prove that he was the top mage in the guild, which is why he was going to face two big weaknesses of his.

Attractive women, and working in a team.

"Aestus!"

Hearing Julianna suddenly call him out of his thoughts, Aesuts shook his head before looking around for the young woman, who wasn't in the spot that she had been only a few moments ago. Finally catching sight of her and Echo the tall male quickly ran towards the two which were making their way towards the train... which had arrived while he had been lost in thought.

For once Echo was the one in the lead, as Julianna stood behind to wait for Aestus. It didn't seem like there where that many people who would be going on the train, but she wanted to reserve some spots so the three could sit together.

Out of nowhere Echo bumped into someone, making her immediately apologize to whoever...

Looking up to the person she had bumped into, her amber eye quickly noted it was a male. He was a few inches taller than herself and had a pale complexion, with his equally pale blonde hair sticking out in all sorts of angles and the bangs much longer on the right side of his face. Echo's single amber eye locked on with one of his own eyes, which was a mix of both orange and yellow.

The man smirked down at Echo, his snake-like eyes inspected Echo real quick before winking at the shorter blonde, "No worries, cutie," the male spoke confidently before walking off, rolling up both sleeves of his stringed, light brown shirt before tucking his hands into the side pockets of his black jeans.

Echo looked back at the male, a light frown etched on her face. Something seemed... off about him, to say in the least; but before the blonde could think much on the matter she felt herself being pulled away by one of her arms. Echo quickly realized it was Julianna who was dragging both her and Aestus into the train.

Victory Tree guild hall

"...so," Mordred spoke casually, ruby red eyes looked up at the male standing right next to her.

Chaos kept his eyesight on the board in front of him; his violet eyes scanned every single sheet hanging off the board over, and over again. Mordred, who stood beside him had been watching Chaos for a while now...

Mordred glanced at the job board for a slight moment before looking back at the white tuxedo male, her red eyes watching Chaos with the out most care.

Running a hand through his mossy hair, Chaos sighed in annoyance, "You're really bored, aren't you?"

The young mistress nodded, "Yeah," she spoke casually.

Mordred, without Echo or Riley around became extremely bored and simply decided to watch Chaos pick out a job. Though it wasn't like there was that many jobs to take, not counting the two taken already there were about 17 possible missions one could go on... which was way more than the pathetic amount Victory Tree usually got.

On a nearby table, Perri had an opened book laid in front of her and was already half way done with it. She found herself distracted by their mistress pestering Chaos and while the book was interesting on it's own, Perri couldn't help but chuckle lightly under her breath.

Chaos had been standing in front of the job board ever since yesterday night and it seemed that even after hours of looking over the requests he still hadn't picked one; Perri had offered her assistance but Chaos turned her down, claiming that he would decide on one by himself in due time. Perri didn't seem disappointed by the rejection though, the mage simply went back to reading the book on long forgotten kingdoms while awaiting for Riley to get back with blueberries... so he could make her a smoothie.

From the thought alone the black haired mage couldn't help but drool a bit from the corner of her mouth... she really loved the smoothies Riley made.

"How about that one?" Mordred pointed at a random job, deciding to help Chaos... or just annoy him more, whichever came first.

Chaos glanced at the sheet and seemed to think about it for a few seconds, but then he calmly shook his head, "No,"

"That one?" The young mistress pointed to another one, which seemed really good paid.

"I don't want to babysit some spoiled brat," the violet-eyed male stated bluntly.

Mordred pointed to another one, "How about this?"

"Looks too easy," Chaos said flatly, not even bothering to look at the request his mistress was suggesting.

"You aren't even looking," Mordred pointed out, frowning lightly.

"No need, I already memorized that section," Chaos spoke casually, not ever once looking at his mistress.

Mordred crossed her small arms over her chest, "You're annoying," the young mistress lightly pouted, puffing up her cheeks in anger.

Chaos rolled his eyes, "So are you," the violet eyed male pointed out.

The young mistress shook her head, "Nah-uh," Mordred said in a childish tone.

"Yeah, yeah you are," this time he glanced over to his mistress, who was glaring at him. Though because of her childish face, some people could say she looked adorable... Chaos wasn't one of those people.

"Tsk, you wish grumpypants!"

Chaos kept looking at the young teen for a few more seconds, seemingly thinking over something before turning to look back at the board, "I'm just going to ignore you now," the violet eyed malde told her bluntly.

"Okay," Mordred said casually before walking away, seemingly headed in the direction of the table Perri was sitting at.

Spotting her mistress walking in her direction, Perri put down the book for a moment before smiling at the younger girl, "You worrying about Echo, mistress?"

Mordred slumped down on a chair right next to Perri before dropping her head on the wooden table... a bit too hard, "...Yes," the silver haired girl stated flatly, cringing a bit from the pain of the impact.

Perri giggled lightly at the way her usually strict, confident mistress was acting like, "I'm sure she's fine, Julianna and Aestus are strong,"

"I know, I know!" Mordred raised her head and pushed her small hands into the air, "But she's my special baby!" the fourteen year old shouted out desperately, almost like a worried mother leaving their child for the first time.

The charcoal-eyed woman placed a hand one of Mordred's shoulders, "Even real mothers have to let go of their children at some point..." Perri pointed out in a soft tone.

Mordred seemed to be thinking about the older female's words for a few moments, an unreadable expression etched on her face which made Perri think that she finally got through her mistress... that is until she heard her mistress speak the next few words,

"... I don't think I'm ready for that,"

With that the young girl got up from her chair before rushing towards the large, wooden guild doors at an almost inhuman-speed till she exited the guild. Mordred was determined to get to the Beach City train station and stop Echo from leaving... the possibility of the blonde already being long gone never crossed her mind.

"...hmm," Perri couldn't help but sweat drop, Mordred was really... really, really, really overprotective of Echo. Perri watched the wide opened guild doors for a couple more seconds, seemingly thinking about something before eventually turning her attention back to the book in hand, deciding she wanted to finish it today so she could start on another one.

The guild remained like this, with Chaos silently watching the job board and Perri reading her book before one of them broke the peaceful silence...

"Oh? She left?" Perri's ears perked up when she heard her guild mate speak up, looking over at Chaos the mage could see him glancing around the guild frantically.

Perri nodded lightly, "Yeah, she left for the train station," female explained, even though Chaos didn't seem to be paying attention.

Chaos grinned widely, something she's never seen the violet-eyed male do before as he spun the board around. Perri seemed confused about what he was doing, well it was more of _why_ he was doing it, so the black haired mage decided to get back at reading her book.

If Mordred had even the slightest suspicion of the job he was about to go on his guild mistress, being the ridiculously over worried person she was, would have most likely asked someone to tag along with him... which is why as soon as Chaos spotted the request comfortably hidden between all the other sheets he immediately hid it behind the board. After pondering lightly on what do to Chaos decided to stall by pretending he was looking for a job... that is until Mordred left the guild,

"It should be right...here?" Chaos' face seemed to almost pale from the sight of the completely bare back of the board.

The male quickly got down on his knees and frantically looked around the floor in the nearby area, hoping that the sheet just fell by accident and was somewhere nearby, but after a few minutes of searching that was obviously not the case. Chaos got back up on his feet and came to one conclusion... someone must have taken.

Just as that thought came into mind, Chaos heard two sets of footsteps walk into the guild. Quickly spinning around the violet eyed male realized it was Iris and Aria, who had dropped by the guild one last time before leaving on the job they had picked out... just like Mordred had ordered everyone to do because apparently she needed to bless all of them, you know to make sure nothing went wrong on the missions they would be going on.

Iris had on a huge white cloak that covered everything below her neck, Chaos could only guess she was wearing her usual attire below the large garment... the cloak also had a hood, but Iris kept it off at the moment so her face was completely visible.

The red head who stood beside her had on a matching colored trench coat, though it was left unbuttoned so Chaos could clearly see she had on the clothes she wore regularly at the guild right below it. Chaos also noted that she was holding a piece of paper in her hands, he figured it was the job the duo would be taking.

Light blue eyes looked around the guild for a moment, Iris had practically dragged Aria back to the guild so that they could follow Mordred's orders... but after carefully looking around the guild Iris realized that their mistress wasn't here.

Aria, who stood right beside her, couldn't help but groan out in annoyance as she only saw Chaos and Perri, or as she liked to call them Grumpypants and Bookworm in the guild "Told ya it would be a waste of time," the red head muttered bitterly to Iris.

Iris simply shook her head, "I'm following orders, unlike _someone_," the pink-haired girl glared lightly at Aria.

The red head in question simply rolled her eyes, "Whateves'!" Aria spoke in an annoyed tone, "Can we just get going on the job now?" the piece of paper Aria had in her hands fell to the floor for a second, which she didn't seem to realize.

Chaos didn't have a clue how on Earthland he managed to read the dropped paper on the floor, even though the guild wasn't that big in size there was still plenty of distance between them and himself; his eyesight was nothing special... but right now it only took one look at the paper to realize what job the female duo would be going on...

Chaos stomped towards the two mages before pointing at the job sheet, which Aria was had picked up, "That's an S-class job, you know," Chaos pointed out in slightly angered tone, glaring at the red head who was holding the piece of paper.

Upon hearing the male Iris seemed confused and sincerely looked as if she didn't have an idea on what he was talking about. S-class? Aria had told her the job she had picked out was an A-class...

Unlike her pink-haired friend Aria had an obvious guilty look on her face, though just a thief caught in the act she decided to deny it all, "What're ya going on 'bout, grumpypants?" Aria spoke nervously, something that didn't go unnoticed by both Chaos and Iris.

Before Aria could react Chaos snatched the piece of paper off her hands in one swift movement, in response the red head tried to take it right back but it was futile, before looking through the paper... just to be one hundred percent certain.

"I KNEW IT!" Chaos shouted out while holding the sheet in his hands, to make sure he wasn't making a mistake he inspected the piece of paper one last time, "THIS IS THE S-CLASS JOB I HID FROM EVERYONE ELSE!"

Unbeknownst to Mordred the delivery person from the magic council she had bribed had given her guild one, single S-class job amongst the other ones. Putting the sheet with all other requests on the board it didn't take long before Chaos had caught sight of it and hid it away from everyone else.

Aria gritted her teeth, "But I found that!" the red head protested while she attempted to take the job sheet from Chaos' grasp once again. Aria had only found the paper by chance, in fact she had already long forgotten why she even looked behind the board in the first place.

"W-wait... we we're going to take an S-class job?!" Iris finally realized what exactly the red head had done and turned to glare at Aria, who seemed to have frozen up from the sudden accusation, "Neither of us are in that class, Aria! We could have gotten seriously hurt..."

Aria shook her head, "No way! We're both strong, this way that brat would have moved us to a higher class!" the red head argued.

Iris only glared at Aria, it was clear that this is the farthest the red head had gone out of all outrageous acts she's done.

Chaos oddly stood there, with the job request finally back in his hands he was a bit unsure what do next because... well, he didn't really care about what was going on between the two of the- wait.

"I'm leaving now," Chaos stated flatly before walking past the two females, he didn't want to waste any more time and simply wanted to get going on the job already...

"Wait!" before Chaos could go on any further, he felt someone grab one of his hands, "Take us with you!" Aria pleaded, which seemed to stun Iris who was a few inches behind the red head.

"No," not even thinking about it, Chaos right out denied the request.

That only seemed to anger Aria "Come on!" The red head pleaded again, she did nothing to hide the desperate emotion in her tone.

"Aria... stop bothering him," Iris spoke in a hushed tone, grabbing one of the red head's hands. She personally knew about how excited Aria had been to finally go on an actual job after so long, sure it had turned out to be an S-class job but Iris didn't really care about that anymore... in fact she wasn't even angry at the red head and had completely forgiven her, as she knew Aria didn't have any bad intentions in mind.

Iris started to pull the red head back before she faced Chaos, who was simply looking at the two, "I apologize on behalf of my friend Aria, Mister Ouro," the pink-haired girl bowed lightly out of respect, "I hope you can forgive us for causing such trouble..."

…

…

…

Oh god.

Oh god.

Was he seriously thinking this?

_'No way...' _for him to be even considering this... even if he tended to be a tad nicer with women this was way too out of character for him. Seriously, it's almost as if his time in Victory Tree had turned him into a huge softy...but when he saw the way Iris acted he couldn't help but be slightly reminded of...

"...Well, if you two still want to..." Chaos spoke in an overly hesitant tone, which attracted both Aria and Iris' attention, "I suppose I can let you two tag along, it's not like I really care of anything,"

Iris seemed stunned upon hearing Chaos say those words, from the short time she's been part of the guild the pink haired girl has never once seen him act like this.

Aria, while also surprised to hear such words from the violet-eyed male, simply looked at Chaos with glee in her eyes before speaking, "NO WAY! REALLY?!" the red head shouted in an excited tone.

The male didn't need to speak anymore more, a simple nod was enough to confirm the two that he wasn't joking around and was being dead serious; before they could say anything else Chaos started to walk down the street, seemingly headed in the general direction of the train station.

Both friends quickly got their acts together before following Chaos. The duo wondered if he would be stopping by his apartment to change and get gear... but they didn't really know where he lived at, so they had no clue.

Iris and Aria quickly caught up with Chaos and now walked right beside him; Iris seemed a lot calmer about the whole thing, seeing as he was an S-class mage she figured that they would be alright in whatever they came across while on the job...

Aria had a huge grin plastered on her face. The red head was more than glad that they would be going on this job, after all now they could finally prove to Mordred that they were more than worthy of being moved up a class! Sure they weren't going alone... like originally planned... but she was way too happy at the moment to care much about such details.

…

"So, Chaos you found a job yet?" Perri asked nonchantly, not looking away from her book she decided to strike up another conversation... even if they usually lasted a few moments. Chaos wasn't really much of a talker after all...

Perri wasn't surprised at all from not hearing a response, seeing as it usually took afew attempts to get Chaos to talk the young woman continued to reading her books for a few more moments; when she finished with the page Perri decided to try it again, "Chaos? You sure you don't need any help?"

…

…

… No reply, again.

Odd. Usually Chaos would give her some sort of answer by now.

"Hey, Chaos...?" glancing away from her book and towards the job board nearby, Perri's eyes widened when she didn't see Chaos standing at his usual spot. Having no idea that Chaos had left with Aria and Iris on a job or that even the two females had been here Perri was shocked to see nobody around, even if the guild was pretty small in terms of members there was usually two or more people in the guild; from the short time Perri has been here she doesn't recall a moment where the guild was as empty as it is right now.

The charcoal-eyed female started to chuckle nervously, "This feels odd..." she mumbled to herself, it wasn't like she was scared of being alone or anything but... the silence didn't really fit the guild.

Perri glanced at the wide opened entrance, suddenly hearing a pair of footsteps walk in. The young woman was surprised to see Riley finally arrive to the guild after so long, though she wondered for a slight moment where on Earthland he spent the night; his uniform was full of dirt and he had a black eye, but before he could think much more on it her thoughts quickly changed to...

_'Who is that woman besides him?'_

She stood shorter then Riley; with long, wavy lime green hair that was up in a high ponytail and orange-flame colored eyes looking around the small guild, Perri figured that she stood out a lot. The young woman had on a tight, long sleeved mossy green shirt with a tan colored leather jacket on top, which was left opened; right below she had on a pair of black, leather jeans which hugged her legs. To finish off her outfit was a pair of matching colored knee length boots, which had a lot of buckles... Perri wondered for a moment why boots would need so many buckles.

Looking around the guild for a moment Riley was glad Perri was the only one here, but at the same time he cursed at the fact that Mordred wasn't around when he actually needed her, "...Uh, you'll have to wait a bit... s-sorry about that," Riley apologized to green haired woman next to him, who only smiled at him before the waiter walked off, telling her that was she was more than free to sit anywhere.

"Riley, what happened?" Perri asked the waiter when he walked past her, seemingly making his way to his room.

"Uh... I'll explain it when Mordred gets back," Riley spoke nervously before walking off and not giving Perri a chance to ask any more on the matter; this caused the woman to frown lightly.

"Hello," the woman Riley had brought sat on a chair right beside her own; not given a chance to react the green-haired woman quickly got a hold of her loose braided hair and admired the flowers across it, "I'm Melody! Pleased to meet ya!" Melody greeted Perri, smiling brightly while looking at Perri.

Perri was a bit surprised on how she was acting; from looks alone she could tell Melody was older then herself but... it seemed she had the personality of someone Modred's age. Nonetheless Perri has never been known to be rude, "Hi, i'm Perri...! Could you tell me what happened with Riley?" the bookworm just had to ask this, otherwise it would bother her to no end until Mordred got back.

"Sure!" Melody spoke in a cheerful tone, "There was this group of thugs, and then Mister Riley..."

"He saved you?" Perri asked before Melody could finish explaining her what happened; she was honestly surprised that Riley would so such a thing.

"No," Melody stated flatly while shaking her head, "These thugs were beating up Mister Riley, so I shooed'em away with my magic!"

"Oh," it made some sense now. Perri was still surprised that Melody knew magic and couldn't help but wonder what exactly... before she could ask about it Melody acted first.

Melody, seemingly out of nowhere pulled out a large bag and laid it on the table in front of them; Perri inspected it for a few moments before the lime-haired woman reached into it and pulled out a blueberry, "Want some?" Melody asked Perri while eating the blueberry and offering her the bag so that Perri could get as many as she wanted.

"... With pleasure," Perri replied before grabbing a handful of blueberries.

Beach City; somewhere near the train station

"Worst, day, EVER!" Mordred cried out into the sky while getting on her knees, almost as if some divine figure would answer her plead.

She ignored the stares of the many civilians passing by the street; as someone who could care less about other people's opinion Mordred was focused more on releasing all the pain in her aching heart... Echo was gone, she had been too late; 30 minutes late to be exact...

Since the day Echo joined the guild Mordred has tried with all her might to keep her as near as possible... always. Promising herself that she would "protect that smile" Mordred doesn't recall a single time she's been so serious about anything, not including Victory Tree of course, and since then the young teen has constantly adored with affection, stalked, babied, and stalked Echo some more to make sure she always knew of her location.

"My feels..." Mordred put one of her hands over heart, almost as if doing so it would relieve the pain.

After a few more minutes of making a fool out of herself she finally got up, deciding that by kneeling in the middle of the street would accomplish nothing Mordred decided to do some shameless advertising of Victory Tree to everyone passing by, telling each one of them that they welcomed all staff and mages, before walking away and doing some more shameless advertising.

"Victory Tree!" Mordred cheered while running through the sidewalk and dodging the occasional background character... as she liked to call them, "We literally accept anyone!"

Shameless.

Mordred kept running for a good half an hour till she realized the direction she was running wasn't the way to Victory Tree; in fact it wasn't till she looked around that the mistress realized that there weren't even people around and had somehow ended up in the... dark side of Beach City.

As she liked to call it.

"...Hmm," Mordred looked around, calmly looking for some way to go back to the light side of Beach City. All the buildings seemed very old and rusted down, almost as if the slightest gust of wind would-

"GAAAH!" Mordred yelled out from surprised when a house nearby suddenly plummeted down from... a gust of wind.

The young guild mistress shook her head before she continued walking, she noted a lot of graffiti on the beaten down buildings; some seemed old while others looked as if they were just freshly painted on. On the matter Mordred was sure that Beach City was filled with numerous gangs... luckily enough none of those foolish mongrels have decided to jump one of her guild mates or herself, so she didn't really care about them...

If they did...

Out of nowhere Mordred heard the distant chatter of people; she was a bit surprised that she just now realized how quiet it had been for the past few minutes, but coming to the conclusion that following the noise would lead her back to the light side of Beach City the young mistress began to jog in the direction of the voices...

As Mordred got closer the voices became louder, much clearer and the mistress instantly knew she had been in the wrong when she turned into an alley and came face to face with a scene of a bunch of old guys in a circle... seemingly surrounding two individuals. Out of pure curiosity the mistress walked towards the group of thugs as quiet, and as quickly as she could...

"No way! He won again!" One of the men shouted out, this one seemed to have a heavy tan and a bushy beard; all that he wore was a pair of worn out blue jeans and a white tank top.

Oddly enough he was pointing to a younger male, which in comparison to most of the guys here was much younger. For someone who didn't have the slightest interest in ogling at males Mordred had to admit the male was quite handsome... with pale blonde hair, a good fashion sense, and bearer of some gorgeous eyes... which looked as if they belonged to a snake.

Yu Tatetoken gave a devious grin as his eyes looked at the cards laid out in front of him; ever since arriving to Beach City he had decided to find... Some folk to play a few card games, you know win some easy pocket jewel to buy himself a sandwich or something. Beating these old men had been easier then expected... and once again he proved that lady luck adored him.

"Man... he's good," his opponent muttered to gritted teeth before reaching into the pockets of his plain, worn out khakis and throwing some jewel to the handsome blonde.

Chuckling lightly Yu grabbed the jewel and stashed it into his pockets, "Fellaws, I'm afraid you are way out of your league here... lady luck just loves adores me," the blonde boasted before laughing out loud and getting up, "Anyone else want to go another round?"

The men around him looked as if they would jump him at any second, Mordred noted and she had no idea why they hadn't done it already... hell if she was any of these guys she would of jumped one this guy already. As the men around them started to whisper to each other her question was answer by... Bill.

"Let's just beat him up, Bill..." the one with the white tank top muttered to the taller, tanner male who seemed a lot more dressed up compared to him.

Bill shook his head, "No way... he's a mage dumbass! He could beat us all up if he wanted too,"

Mage?

Mordred's ear perked upon hearing that, if this guy was a mage then... maybe, just maybe he could convince him to join! That way they would only need a tiny bit less to meet the "10 member" quota by the end of the week... and if her guild met the requirement of 10 members or more...

"My guild wouldn't get disbanded," Mordred muttered to herself. It seemed nobody heard her, either because she had been so quiet about it or because they had really terrible hearing... but that would change soon enough. With her intentions clear the young mistress quickly did one, quick inspection of herself before pushing through Bill and... Bill number two. As soon as they felt her small hands the older men freaked out and moved out the way, seemingly from the shock of this pale little girl with silver hair and red, crimson eyes appearing out of nowhere.

Yu cocked up an eyebrow upon seeing Mordred entering the man-made circle, but before he could ask why on Earthland she was here the young silver haired teen spoke, "Come at me bro," the teen blinked for a moment before realizing what she said, "I mean, I hereby challenge you... uh..."

"Yu Tatetoken," the blonde introduced himself before laughing out loud, much like all the other men around him, "Kid, scram please, you don't know what you're getting into,"

"I perfectly know what I'm getting into Yu," Mordred argued before getting closer and looking up at him, red eyes meeting orange ones... "So how about you man up and we can get our game on?" the teen blinked a few times before shaking her head, deciding there was nothing wrong with what she said.

Nothing.

"Tsk... fine, bring it..."

"Mordred Von Harmonia," the young teen introduced herself, bowing lightly out respect which seemed to crack up all the other men, "And I would like to propose another game.. one that includes pure luck!"

Yu raised an eyebrow, already having a deck of cards in hand and shuffling them skilfully, "No way, you probably would rigged it," the blonde pointed out as he looked accusingly at the young teen.

"No, I assure you that there's no possible way for me to rig this game..." Mordred explained while holding out her hands in defense.

The blonde rolled his eyes before putting his deck of cards away, "Fine, let's hear it,"

"FIRST! The stakes," Mordred pointed out, deciding she should probably get that out of the way.

"Alright... if I win, you hand over everything you own," Yu grinned down widely at the young teen in front of him, thinking that would probably scare her off or something.

Mordred didn't seemed the least bit shaken up by the stakes," Okay, seems fair enough... if I win, you join my guild and do everything I tell you to do to the letter,"

"... Wait! Guild? You mean Victory Tree?" One of the men spoke up.

Bill cracked up from hearing the name mentioned, "Victory Tree! That newbie guild nobody gives a shit about... is run by a little girl?" from that last part everybody started to crack up, even Yu started to laugh out loud at the sudden realization... seriously was the Magic Council stupid enough to let a child run a guild nowadays?!

After a few more laughs everything silenced down, Mordred had her hands crossed over her chest while looking up at the taller blonde.

Wiping some tears away from his eyes, the male blonde stopped laughing, "Deal," Yu managed to speak through hoarse breathes, he held out his hand for Mordred to shake but...

All of the sudden Mordred clasped his hand with both her own for a few seconds as a small, black magic circle began to hover of them; both hands emitted a small light before the magic circle disappeared

After Mordred removed her hands there, on the backside of Yu's palm one could clearly see an odd skeleton mark causing the male to widen his eyes, "What the hell did you do to me?" orange eyes glared at the young teen in front of him; he was surprisingly calm about all this.

Mordred didn't answer Yu, seeing as she was applying her own black skeleton mark before looking up at the blonde male, "Just to make sure you don't go back on our deal... this is the mark of Hades," Mordred explained briefly before going into more detail; apparently once you had this mark the bearer must go through with the conditions done with the deal... otherwise it would create a lethal poison inside you and kill you in a matter of moments.

"Even If you were to cut off your hand... the mark would simply appear somewhere else," Mordred explained fully before smirking up the blonde, who didn't seem as fazed as she had hoped, "Of course, that applies to me too," the young mistress pouted.

"Fine... what's the game then?"

In that very moment Mordred instantly began to think of a game they could play... one where she had the highest chance of winning, but at first glance would seem as a game that would be decided on pure luck alone. Looking around the alley she didn't get many ideas; all the young mistress could were some smashed cans of beer, stinky men, a garbage dumpster, and... a pigeon at the end of the alley.

Mordred, upon seeing the bird, smirked deviously before pointing at the bird, "This, blondie, is something that will test our luck and nothing else!" the young teen proclaimed before she continued, "When will that pigeon take flight? The closest estimate is the winner,"

Yu seemed to think about the game for a moment, the blonde had noticed the pigeon landing just a few seconds ago and even though he was doing some quick thinking the blonde couldn't come up with any way this brat could rig this bet.

After a few more moments of pondering, Yu looked down at the young teen before nodding "Alright, fine," he spoke oddly calm; Yu didn't worry about losing and just like all the other games, bets, and gambles he's done in the past the blonde was sure he would be winning this one.

"Rules?" Mordred asked, even though it was her game.

The blonde male simply grinned down at Mordred, seeing this game already good as won, "You better keep your part of the deal," Yu reminded her.

"That's it?" Mordred blinked while looking up at Yu, who seemed to only ignore her as he thought long and hard about how much time it would take for the bird to fly away.

The men looked at Yu intently, to them this game seemed as something that even the "silver haired brat" had a fair chance of winning... "That pigeon will take flight in 3 minutes," the blonde mage spoke confidently, figuring that was a safe number.

Mordred looked down at her feet, suddenly noticing a can of beer beside them, before giving her own guess "... that pigeon will fly away in 5 seconds,"

_'Yup, this game is as good as mine'_

This is what Yu thought.

But this is also what Mordred thought.

With that everyone's intent gaze fell on the plain bird down the alley who seemed to have no idea what was going on; the pigeon kept poking at the floor and didn't seem to be going away any time soon as the men surrounding the two began the count.

Yu calmly looked at the pigeon, thinking that there was no way in Earthland he would be losing this.

And Mordred...

_1..._ As soon as the count started Mordred kicked the can of beer beside her feet, surprising both Yu and the older men as it flew towards the pigeon.

_2..._

_3..._ The can kept flying across the small alley, getting closer to the pigeon.

_4..._ The can manages to hit the pigeon successfully.

_5... _Damaged by the piece of trash, the pigeon quickly flies off into the distance.

Everyone but Mordred had a look of shock filled gazes as they kept starring at the spot the pigeon had been standing only a few moments ago.

Yu quickly turned to look at Mordred, annoyance clearly written all over his face, "That's cheating!" the blonde yelled out in anger through gritted teeth.

Mordred titled her head to the side and had an innocent look on her face, almost as if she had no idea what he was talking about, "Cheating? I asked you about the rules... and all you said that I better keep my part of the bet," the young mistress pointed out, "Nothing about throwing empty cans at defenseless birds,"

The young teen grinned when he noticed the blonde male pale at the thought, almost as if he was regretting that very choice; he had underestimated this girl and now he was paying for it, "I have these fine men as my witnesses, so you better keep part of the deal... shorty,"

For a single moment Yu forgot all about the bet and glared at her, "Shorty? I'm taller then you, midget,"

"Down on your knees," Mordred ordered like a drill sergeant, though because of her childish appearance one couldn't really take her seriously.

Yu shook his head, "I refuse you cheated,"

At that statement the small mistress smirked deviously, "You sure about that?" Mordred asked before pointing to his hand; there, on the back of his palm the mark the young girl had placed on him was starting to glow.

Yu paled when he noticed it glowing; the blonde had heard of the Hades Mark a lot more than most people as back home his family always used one whenever making a deal with one of the other families... he only bore witness once to what happened when the bearer didn't complete their side of the deal.

Instant death.

Gritting his teeth and losing his cool-collected composure, Yu kneeled down as per the order of Mordred, who seemed to be having a blast at this. He had no choice but do as she said... for now. This wasn't the first time he's been in such a predicament, and it wouldn't as hell be his last one! But Yu wanted to live, so the best option was to play along with this brat's game for a while.

He could hear the men around them laughing their asses off, almost as if they were having a blast seeing the confident Yu, the one who had bested all of them in gambling, on his knees. The supposed tactical evil genius was now kneeling down for a brat...

Before he could event react Mordred got on his back and quickly got a hold of his shoulders, "Now give me a piggyback ride all the way to my guild, Yu!" the silver haired girl giggled, she was going to get the most out of this.

Swallowing his pride Yu got up before walking out of the alley, the chorus of all the old men laughing could be heard right behind him.

Mordred snuggled against his back, "Don't worry, I'll be treating you nicer... you're my baby now after all!" the young teen cheered.

"Just tell me where to go, I have no idea where this lame guild of yours is," Yu stated flatly while walking out of the dangerous district the same way he had come in, which was through this beaten up road which led to the center of Beach City.

The young girl pouted lightly before pointing, "Go in that direction... maybe,"

"Maybe?" the blonde questioned.

Mordred nodded "Maybe," she repeated in a questionable tone, almost as if she wasn't sure herself, "We'll just travel around Beach City till we find it! No worries right?"

_Ugh._

Just like that everything became quiet; Yu eventually got out of the run down district of Beach City and started to walk in the direction that Mordred had pointed out only to quickly find out she had been in the wrong... they repeated this process 10 more times until finally seeing the guild hugged between two, large buildings.

"That's the one, right?" Yu questioned in a tired tone... despite her small appearance Mordred was heavy as hell!

…

"Hey, kid?"

Turning his head around lightly, the blonde could that the young mistress had already fallen asleep... her head was resting peacefully on his back while she let out soft, quiet snores every now and then. It seemed that she had tired herself out... even if she had done NO WALKING WHATSOEVER.

Well, that would explain why she suddenly felt heavy.

Letting out a sigh in annoyance he figured that was the guild this brat was running, so continuing on his way Yu couldn't help but think that if she hadn't bounded him to a lethal cursed mark that pretty much turned him into her own, personal puppet to use... he would have dropped her right there and now.

"...I swear to you, Mordred, I'm going to make you regret making me join this guild,"

"lolsure,"

Yu blinked and froze on spot; had she been awake the whole time? Glancing back at her he still saw her asleep and snoring softly before she suddenly mumbled some other... sleep talking. Rolling his orange eyes Yu continued on his way to the guild, figuring that the faster he got there the much less time it would take to find a way to get rid of the Hades Mark.

**-AND THAT'S ALL! Thanks for reading! I added a good 5000 words yesterday, so your welcome! :P **

**I've been trying to work more on my other SYOC story, Festival of Carnage, but I suddenly felt like working on this one so here I am! This chapter I introduced Melody and Yu, who will be getting their mark on due time; Echo, Aestus, and Julianna much like Chaos, Iris, and Aria will be encountering two new recruits next chapter while completing their jobs.**

**I'm also planning to introduce two more characters, but I have no idea how yet xP. Everyone will be getting some sort of intro for this arc, even if they won't really be making an appearance till later (that's mainly just one, because he does the whole Gildarts thing though). I have named this arc "Trials and Adventures" … cheesy, I know.**

**Random sneak peek: Arc 2: The Monster Association**

**Yes, I'll be doing that every three chapters or so. The random sneak peeks can and will be anything! From names, future scenes, and what not. Is that a bad idea? I don't know, I feel like It would give you guys something to look forward to... so yeah, if you want me to stop just go ahead and tell me.**

**I will no longer be accepting Ocs, I have enough now... so I guess I'll be removing the SYOC from the title.**

**Also for fun... who's in my profile picture? Name the character and from what series and you will be getting a cookie.**


	4. Alive

Victory Tree guild hall

**** Riley, in all his time in this guild, had never felt as uncomfortable as he is right now. After changing into a freshly clean, exact copy of his waiter uniform Riley walked into the guild hall and while he was happy that... Melody? Yeah, that's it. While he was happy that Mermady was getting along with Perri (who seemed to be the only one here, oddly enough) what was making Riley uncomfortable... was...

"...Um, who are you?" it was not Riley who had spoken, but Perri. Dark grey eyes looked at the blonde stranger who had brought Mordred to the guild... asleep and piggyback style. The male had thrown her guild mistress onto Melody before walking away and sitting on a table far away from them. Melody surprisingly enough wasn't shocked from someone suddenly throwing a young teenager onto her lap, instead she had begun playing with Mordred's long, flowy white hair while the young mistress continued to sleep... mumbling something in her sleep every now and then.

Riley was at the bar cleaning a cup with a white rag... for quite a while now.

Yu frowned at the mage, "Look, any other time or place and I might have chat you up... but I am not in the mood right now," he had no intentions of staying long, instead he'd rather take his time and try to figure out a way to get rid of the Mark of Hades.

Perri frowned at the blonde, wondering for a moment what kind of person her mistress had brought to guild... her thoughts were cut off by Melody.

"Perri!"

The frown on her face started to morph into a much softer expression as Perri turned to look at the older mage, "What is it Melody?" she asked with a soft smile.

"Who's this girl?" Melody motioned with her head towards the sleeping Mordred, she had been too busy playing with her hair that she sort of forgot to ask the obvious question...

Perri blinked for a moment before chuckling lightly, "That's the mistress of the guild, Mordred,"

"...Oh," Melody looked down at the younger female, "She's so cute though! I thought guild masters had to be grandpas and grandmas..."

"That's two of us," Perri giggled lightly, "I didn't know someone so young could run a guild... but, well I guess she's a skilled mage!" that's right, on the topic of Mordred's magic... Perri didn't have the slightest clue what kind of magic her mistress used. The sudden thought made her curious on the subject...

Perri turned to look at Riley, who seemed distracted cleaning the cup, "Hey Riley! Do you know what magic Mordred uses?" the mage asked with a soft smile.

The sudden call caused Riley to flinch and almost drop the cup, but clumsily enough he managed to get a proper hold on it before he turned to look at Perri... trying his best not seem nervous, "Err... N-no actually... but I bet Echo, Chaos, or Julianna would know!" Riley spoke, in the end failing on his attempt to sound calm.

Perri was a tad disappointed that the only members who had a clue on her magic were out on jobs, but her thoughts went back to the black eye Riley had gotten... from the brief explanation Melody had given her Perri got a clear idea on what had gone down, but why had they taken so long to come back?

"Mister Riley! You should treat that eye now, you know," Melody suddenly spoke up while still playing with Mordred's hair.

Compared to most of the members here, Perri hadn't been part of Victory Tree for too long. But even she could tell the phenomenon that was happening right in front of her... for once Riley didn't sound as nervous as a boy holding hands with a girl for the first time,

"My eye is the least of my worries... you really don't know how to hold back with your magic, do ya?" the waiter spoke in an irritated voice while softly grabbing both of his ears, "I know I was in trouble... but i'd say it was going better for me before you came along and used that screech-like, thingy spell!"

Melody stopped playing around with Mordred's hair and turned to face Riley. The Lime-haired woman started to glare at the waiter but Perri couldn't really take her seriously... with those large, soft red eyes of hers, "That's so mean Mister Riley! You'd probably be beat up and unconscious somewhere in this city if it wasn't for me!" Melody protested while she pouted.

Riley rolled his eyes, "Well, you got the beat up and unconscious part well done... I woke up the next the day AND I think my ears bled a little thanks to your spell..." he pointed out in a matter-of-fact tone.

Upon hearing this Melody seemed to run out of back-up arguments, so instead she decided to point out the silver lining of all this... "But I remained by your side till you woke up!" Melody said almost desperately.

"The least you could do-um, err... you,"

"Melody,"

"I know! I was just taking my time with that,"

Melody pouted even more, "Then why bring me to your guild?"

"Because in the end... I guess you did save me, so yeah," Riley smiled sheepishly, to be honest there was more to it than that. Apart from feeling dazed for a while after waking up Riley figured that Mor wouldn't let him off the hook like that... so why not only bring proof of his absence, but also another member for the guild! Mor would be so pleased with Riley she'd probably give him the day off...

_'Oh who am I kidding,'_

Perri had been a bit stunned from seeing so much... whatever that had been from Riley. She always thought that maybe he was bad with people... But that didn't seem the case now, "Come on Riley, don't be too hard on Melody!" she teased lightly while grabbing one of Melody's hands, deciding to take this chance to talk with him "Why not cook something up for Melody? You know, to show your gratitude?" the eighteen year old suggested in a friendly tone.

Almost instantly Perri realized that the carefree mood went down to hell when the two locked eyes with each other. An uncomfortable silence befell the guild for a few moments, Perri was used to seeing people in the eye but Riley looked as if he just remembered that Melody wasn't the only one in the guild hall. Out of pure embarrassment Riley looked down at the bar, his whole body trembling as his face grew bright red... you could practically see steam coming out from both his ears. In the end Riley mumbled something that Perri couldn't make out before walking into the kitchen...

Melody seemed surprised from the whole scene, though just as she was about to ask what happened Perri let out a disappointed sigh, "Well, I guess that was a once every-blue-moon chance... ah well," the mage pouted lightly before grabbing a large, thick book out of seemingly nowhere, opening it up to the page she was at, and soon enough began to read up on the island that was just a few miles off the shores of Beach City...

Trisha's Deadland, the history behind it was actually pretty interesting... while never proven, it's said there was a large underground labyrinth that ran all over the island. She was just getting to part where the book was about to say why it had that name exactly... but.

Melody's attention was diverted down to the sleeping Mordred, who was starting to get up with half-opened eyes. Perri looked up from her book, her dark grey eyes analyzed her mistress as Mordred looked around the guild. Mordred seemed to be processing everything around her... eventually her eyes were locked onto Melody, who had a big smile on her face.

The two kept staring at each other for a whole solid minute, Mordred seemed as if she was trying to figure out who this green-haired woman was while Melody found the half-awake Mordred an adorable sight to just look at. With most of the drowsiness slowly fading away, Mordred's eyes started to grow wide at the realization...

Turning to look at Perri, Mordred had a panic look all as she started to speak, "PERRI! Who is this person?!"

"Oh, that's Melody," Perri spoke while laughing a bit at her mistress' reaction, "Riley actually-"

"HOW DID CHAOS TURN INTO A GIRL?!" Mordred shouted in a panic tone while eyeing Melody up and down, while still a bit drowsy she seemed to be speaking completely serious, "HE HONESTLY LOOKS A LOOOOOT BETTER NOW THOUGH... still, while I preferred Chaos I guess changing it to Melody makes sense"

Melody had confusion written all over her face, mostly due to the fact she didn't know who this Chaos person was... Perri had an eyebrow cocked up, deciding that she would give Mordred another minute to fully process what she just said.

While Mordred was on the process of doing that Yu, who had been strangely silent the whole time, couldn't help but shake his head, "That brat you call your mistress... she's an idiot," the blonde spoke bluntly from his table... to be honest he had been tempted to just run far, far away while she was asleep... but who knows what the Mark of Hades would do if he were to do that. Yu doubted that the spell was impossible to break, but it was obviously not going to be a five-minute deal.

Upon hearing the newest addition to her guild speak up, Mordred looked around the guild hall till they finally landed on Yu, "Woah, you still here? I honestly thought you would have run away, or something," the young teen admitted, which surprised the two women sitting with her.

The blonde rolled his orange eyes before putting up his hand, the one that had the Mark of Hades, and reminding her why he hadn't done exactly that. Oddly enough Mordred seemed to eye the powerful, yet simple curse on the back of his palm for a few moments before opening her mouth, seemingly about to say something, but stopping just as she was about to start speaking.

The behavior confused Yu a bit, but he didn't think much on it and simply got up from his table. All three females eyed the blonde as he walked towards them, Perri was a bit worried on what he might do considering the way he had acted at first... but the other two seemed more curious than wary.

Yu cleared his throat before sitting down right next to Mordred, who kept eyeing him, "Apart from that... I am a man of my word, so as such I will become a member of your guild," the blonde spoke with friendliness while looking at everyone on the table, "I'm Yu Tatekon, pleased to make your acquaintance," his eyes quickly stopped on Perri, who seemed to be looking at him suspiciously, "Also my bad for the way I acted... I was a tad grumpy that I lost in this bet me and your mistress did, but well I intend to keep my word as the loser!" the blonde held out his hand so that Perri could shake it, though she simply eyed the hand before hesitantly taking a hold of it.

The blonde mage smirked deviously before looking at Perri, who had a calm expression on her face, "But I have to say this... you are quite the pretty flower," orange eyes looked Perri directly into her eyes, in which returned she only smiled and thanked him for the compliment before letting go of his hand.

Mordred clapped her hands together in glee, "Yay! I knew you guys would get along!" the young teen happily stated while looking at Yu, who only smiled back. She was honestly surprised on the way he was acting, when they first met she had this whole other idea of him... but, then again she was never much of a reader person, "Speaking of guys... has Riley returned, Perri?" the white-haired teen asked Perri, ready to run out of the guild and look for him around the city if needed.

The eighteen year old mage nodded her head softly, "Yeah, he's actually the one who brought Melody!" she decided to hold back on the whole _Riley got jumped _thing and instead, have Riley inform her of everything that went down, "Do you want me to get the mark stamper from your office? You know, to stamp these two," Perri asked her mistress while laying her book down; she quickly got off from her seat and headed towards her mistress' office once Mordred confirmed.

While Melody and Mordred started to chat, mostly consisting of the young teen asking the lime-haired woman various questions Yu eyed Perri as she walked into the Mordred's office... the whole time Mordred had been sleeping like a rock, Yu had come up with a plan already.

Though this Perri person seemed a bit suspicious of him... so he had to pay some extra attention to her.

That's right, when he finally found a way to get rid of this Hades Mark not only would he be free from this idiotic girl's grasp... but he would get payback for her making him join her lame-ass guild!

"Yu,"

His attention was suddenly diverted to Mordred, who had called for him. She was now standing up and was right besides Melody, who was looking at the guild mark that Mordred had placed on her. Catching sight of the guild mark... Yu felt tempted to just run off and have the Hades Mark do its job. But in the end the thought of an instant death terrified him, so he simply let Mordred stamp the guild mark on him once she was informed in what color and where.

Fiore's Academy of Sorcery

It took Aestus, Echo, and Julianna a good 5 hours to arrive to the renowned academy; the small train station was filled to the brim by kids and teens all wearing different colored robes, which confused the three mages a bit.

Aestus casually glanced all over the place, wondering why on earth one would need to go to school to learn magic, "We stand out like a sore thumb," the tall male pointed out flatly.

It was true, with pretty much everyone else in the station wearing one of those silly looking robes the trio wore much casual looking... compared to the uniforms anyways, "Well... we won't be staying for long, so I don't mind," Julianna replied in a calmer tone, she was sort of tired from the train ride.

Echo pointed to an entrance a few feet away, "There's the exit," the blonde chirped before taking the lead once more, Julianna and Aestus pretty much following behind her as they neared the exit and finally got out.

Julianna looked up, smiling softly at the beautiful weather. The sun was up high in the sky with no clouds in sight. It was hot, but the heat wasn't really that strong but a nice warm temperature. The mage had never been in this part of Fiore before, sure after leaving her village she went here and there around the kingdom while trying to learn magic... but Mix-

Julianna frowned at the thought, she didn't like to think much on that certain individual. The mage had no idea why he would pop up in her memories all of the sudden like that, but nothing liking it one bit she decided to start a conversation "So, uh, guys! What did you think on that academy?" the young woman asked her two companions.

Aestus shrugged, "It seemed... sorta dumb," the tall male admitted. He, much like others, was taught magic by a relative; sure it wasn't like originally planned but thanks to his uncle he could travel safely wherever he wanted, knowing all too well that if any trouble aroused he could defend himself.

Echo didn't respond, which the two noticed but didn't find any need to point it out.

Julianna nodded, "Yeah, but I can see how it could help you out," the mage stated "I mean, it sounds like a fun way to learn magic," Julianna would have preferred a hundred times over to go to one of those academies then the original way she learned magic... she didn't hold any resentment towards her magic despite knowing all too well what the goal that had been in mind when _he _taught her this, but if she could do it all over again Julianna would have preferred to learn magic some other way.

...

"I guess," Aestus responded a bit tired, rubbing the back of his head "I still prefer the way I was taught, though"

"Fair enough," Julianna replied back calmly before eyeing Echo, who had been quiet for the past few moments, "...so, Echo! How were you taught?" Julianna asked the blonde.

Aestus also eyed Echo, from the brief explanation she had given them of her magic it seemed really useful... even if the small summary had been pretty vague.

Echo halted in her steps at the sudden question, she glanced down at the dirt road and seemed to hesitate for a moment before answering, "My dad also knew Empathy Magic, so he helped me a lot... but both my parents supported me," the blonde spoke in a serious tone, hugging herself while she talked.

"Oh," Aestus replied lamely.

Julianna smiled softly at the blonde, "That sounds nice... I wished my parents had been half as supportive," the slightest hint of bitterness was in her tone, but it seemed to go unnoticed by both her comrades. Though she was more focused on why Echo's mood suddenly dropped.

The group seemed to be in a frozen-like state for a couple of moments, nobody dared to move or even speak... but nothing lasts forever, eventually the silence was broken by-

"... Do you ever wonder how the world would be like without magic?"

Hearing Echo ask that question surprised both of her teammates; Aestus more of the question itself, to him it was like someone asking _what would life be without people … _though Julianna managed to catch the slightest, tiny bit of sadness that Echo had spoken in. Immediately Julianna's mind was flooding with questions that she wanted to ask the blonde... but she figured right now wasn't the time nor place.

Echo suddenly felt a hand wrap around her back, "It would be boring of course!" Julianna replied in a gleeful tone before hugging her lightly, "There would be no guilds, so we would never probably meet," she pointed out.

"It would be pretty lame," Aestus said flatly, "Thank god that isn't the case here," he chuckled lightly.

Echo simply smiled softly while looking at her two guild mates, she still didn't know why she had asked that question out of the blue like that. All this talk about magic just caused the thought to be blurted out by accident... Echo had been a bit worried they might think weird of her because of what she said, but that didn't seem to be the case.

Some time passed after that and the small group had grown silent, though one of the three would bring up some new thing to talk about; wherever it was about the guild, rumors they've been hearing about their guild mates, or just something they saw in the distance. Most of the small talks were started by Aestus, who seemed bored of the peaceful silence that had befallen the group.

"I heard Mor is from a different country," Aestus suddenly blurted out, making his two companions turn to face him.

Echo cocked up an eyebrow, "I recall her mentioning that once in a small chat we had... though I don't think she told me what country exactly,"

"Hey guys do you have any candy on ya?" Julianna yawned out, though she sighed in disappointment when her guild mates shook their heads.

Some more time passed and Julianna decided to run ahead of the group; the take-over mage wanted to get to Xiram as fast as possible because she had totally forgotten to pack up some candy to bring for the job... usually Julianna just called Riley over to get her some sweets, but with him not being here that wasn't an option anymore. Thinking that maybe Xiram had a store she could buy some candy in the young woman wanted to get there as fast as possible... since she got... well, let's say she gets a tad cranky whenever she doesn't eat some sort of sweet for a long time.

Aestus and Echo were a few feet behind Julianna, the two simply enjoying the slow walk... well Aestus not so much.

"You know Aestus, if you really didn't want to come along you could have said no," Echo suddenly spoke out of nowhere while glancing up to look at the taller male, who seemed a bit surprised by the statement, "You're not good with women, right?"

Aestus was about to ask how on Earth land she knew that, but suddenly he remembered her magic, "...eh, I'm not _that_ bad," the tall male explained casually, "I just get a little nervous when speaking with attractive women... but I figured that this would be a good opportunity to get over it, or in the least help me a bit," his guild did mostly consist of females, all who could be considered beautiful... "But I guess you know all that already, huh? Since you can read emotions and everything,"

Echo shook her head softly, "You make it sound as if I'm psychic or something," the blonde giggled lightly, "I can feel emotions freely... read your thoughts, not so much" she pointed out with a small smile.

Aestus cocked up an eyebrow, "So you _can_ read thoughts?"

"Yeah," the short blonde nodded, "But it's a bit more difficult and I would need your permission before making the complete link," the mage explained.

"Oh," Aestus replied lamely with a sheepish smile; he was glad that she couldn't see everyone's thoughts just like that... it would be very uncomfortable if she could, "But anyways... you know I think my plan's working! I feel pretty calm right now,"

…

Echo started to chuckle nervously, "Yeah... that must be it," the short blonde mumbled, which Aestus could barely make out, "But you know it took me a while before I realized your state... after I felt around with my own energy actually, otherwise I probably wouldn't have known about it... unless the emotion is strong enough, like Riley,"

Aestus cocked up an eyebrow while looking at the smaller blonde, "Riley? What do you mean?

The Empathy mage blinked, "You know, that he also has a bit of trouble with women," she reminded the taller male, who only seemed to grow even more confused.

"What? He has trouble with women too?"

"Well, he's on a whole other level in comparison with you, but- wait," Echo suddenly realized what her guild mate had said, "You mean you didn't know?"

"...No?"

"Really?"

"Yeah,"

"I think everyone knows... I mean, while I did find out thanks to my magic, the way he avoids all the women in the guild..." except Mordred, "I thought everyone had already figured it out," Echo admitted.

"I didn't," Aestus replied casually, though was still quite surprised by the news, "I always thought he was just bad with people,"

"Figured out what?"

Both mages jumped up a bit from being startled by Julianna, who had popped out of nowhere. Echo was about to tell her what they were talking about, but Aestus beat her to it.

"That everyone already figured out Riley's afraid of women... expect me," Aestus spoke with a sheepish smile while he rubbed the back of his head.

"Wait! Riley's afraid of women?" Julianna suddenly blurted, surprised by the news.

Echo halted in her steps, making the other two stop walking to look at the blonde, who had turned to face Julianna, "...you didn't know either?"

"No,"

"But what about those times he gets really nervous around you?"

"...I just always thought he was bad with people," the young woman shrugged.

Echo glanced at her two companions, wondering if maybe she was the only one that actually knew his problem. To be honest it would explain a lot... but then those thoughts quickly changed and she was now wondering if it was okay to have told these two, or anyone really.

The blonde laughed nervously before looking forward and spotting a village at the end of the dirt road, figuring that was probably Xiram the blonde pointed to the distance, "Look! I think that's Xiram!" before her two companions could respond in any way the Empathy mage started to run, in which return both of them started to jog a few steps right behind her.

Some Forest

"Chaos... where are we?" Iris asked hesitantly, looking around the empty forest with wary.

Chaos ignored the question and simply continued to move ahead, despite there being no road or some kind of sign the mossy-haired mage looked as if he knew where to go. The job, while high paying and most likely dangerous was actually a simple one; track down this thief guild that's stolen millions of jewel from the Magic Council. After going to his apartment Chaos had come out with a new change of clothes and without a moment's thought walked off. Iris and Aria, who had waited outside the door of his apartment had a tad amount of difficulty keeping up with him.

At first the two thought that they would be leaving for the train immediately, since the small amount of info on the request sheet stated that the dark guild had been last sighted at a city on the North side of Fiore, but they were surprised when Chaos went into the abandoned part of Beach City and walked into a random warehouse... where he told the two to wait for him.

After they waited for a whole half-hour Chaos finally got out, Iris relieved that he was fine and Aria was just happy they were finally going on the job.

"So... what were you doing?" Aria asked in annoyed tone, though she managed to keep herself calmed down since he was the only reason she was even on this S-class job.

Chaos shook his head, "It's best if you don't find out,"

Since then the two followed silently behind Chaos. Every now and then Iris and Aria would start some conversation with each other, mostly commenting on battle strategies and combos they could try out... they had practiced a few moves with each other, but nothing developed enough to use in battle. Before the two realized they had exited the city via-walking...

Aria's emerald eyes widened in surprise, "Wait! Where are ya goin?" The red head exclaimed, stopping in her tracks. Iris halted in her own steps, while she trusted Chaos enough the pink-haired seventeen-year old was still curious to where they were going.

"To find Spider Monkey," Chaos stated flatly, though he didn't stop walking and simply continued on his way, "I already know where they are, so if you don't want to follow me feel free to stay behind,"

Aria hesitantly followed after Chaos with Iris, who seemed a lot more curious than wary unlike her friend. That had been two hours ago, now they had walked off-road and into a nearby forest...which seemed to lack any sort of life, barely any sunlight could go through the thick branches and all they could hear was the crackling of sticks below their feet with each step they took.

"...Chaos... um, are you sure know where Spider Monkey is at?" Iris asked hesitantly a from behind him.

Chaos nodded, "Yeah, I've got their location from a reliable source," he spoke bluntly, his statement only making his two companions even more curious.

Aria let out a yawn, "Chaos! How long till we reach them?" the red head shouted out to the S-class mage, she was bored out of her mind.

"Well we just got to cross this forest, then cross this prairie before we reach these series of caves..." Chaos paused for a moment, to make sure his two companions got it, "After we do that we have to navigate through the caves and exit through the right one, which should lead us into a hidden valley where Spider Monkey is residing,"

"Wait so it's not in this forest?!" Aria cried out, hoping that by some miracle she had heard all that wrong.

Chaos shook his head, "No, no it's not," the mage stated flatly, "It'd be silly for a dark guild to be so close to a major city like this one, they'd get caught instantly," the mossy-haired male pointed out, a bit surprised that someone would think such a high-wanted dark guild would be so easy to find... which it wasn't. The only real reason he knew of it's location was because...

"You know, it always surprises me how different dark guilds are from each other," Chaos mumbled, the thought suddenly slipping through his lips.

Iris blinked, "Chaos? You say something?" the pink-haired girl asked worriedly.

"I said I hate dark guilds," Chaos replied in a much louder and clear tone, a frown starting to form on his face before the trio went silent again.

Beach City

Azure eyes looked at the small, yet obviously well-built building; analyzing all details about eventually they fell upon the large, painted letters on the wooden doors which stated the name of the guild. While Beach City was huge it wasn't impossible to find the guild, the area where this guild was located at had older-looking buildings and was a lot quieter in comparison to the central area of the city.

She had been traveling for quite a while now, eventually her journey had led her to here... rumors had it that the once proud "Red Cane" had been replaced by a small-time guild, with barely any members and a young girl leading it as it's mistress. More than half of Beach City's residents didn't know of its existence, and the ones that did found the tiny guild laughable.

Nobody paid any attention to it. It was perfect.

Without wasting another moment the person walked into the guild,

**I AM STILL ALIVE. So sorry for not updating in a long, long time. I had to send my computer for repairs and they took their sweet ass time working on it... I was forced to nothing but a phone (I actually tried to write the chapter, but it looked all sloppy and everything. BLEH.).**

**Anyways again, my deepest apologies.**

**While writing the chapter I felt as if my writing instinct had gone all lazy on me, so apologies if this was chapter is a lot lower in quality. To get it back up I'm working on a few one shots... they're looking pretty good imo, but well let's see what everyone thinks. Do not fear though! This fic will go back to weekly updates, though they might be a few days late I will try my best to release content as quickly as possible... with hopefully better quality. I wrote this in a few hours, gave it a quick check, and uploaded as fast as I could. **

**Next one will go back to it's usual length, around 7000-8000 ormore if i'm feeling creative. This arc will be going for about 5-6 more chapters, then the next one will begin. If you want to know what i'm doing with my fics on just go to my profile. I have a little section there where it says what i'm currently working on, future plans, and some other stuff.**

**That's all for this time! Leave a review if you liked the or if you didn't! I appreciate all helpful feedback!**


	5. About time

Victory Tree Guild Hall

Yu scanned the freshly stamped green guild mark, which was on his upper left arm as Mordred started to walk away... he wasn't really paying attention, but it had something to do with her catching sight of the waiter exiting the kitchen with a bunch of plates full of food... or something Eventually his gaze fell onto the cross bone mark on the back of his left palm, making him frown slightly; he'd have to look around the city to see if there was an uncaster around here, that would be the easiest choice... but certainly not the fastest considering the size of the city.

The blonde looked up to see the white-haired girl bombing the waiter with questions; the plates he had brought with him were now laid onto the table, with the lime-haired chick already gobbling up most of the food while the one with the long, thick black hair tied into a loose braid that had some small flowers across it was eating much more... like a civilized person. Yu noted that the book she had with her was laid carefully to the side, not too far from her.

Seeing them eat the food... well, while he was far from being a glutton Yu was quite hungry, so he silently reached for a plate which had two nicely cooked-looking stakes. While he began cutting it with a small knife and fork Yu began wondering if there were any other members, while he wasn't an expert on guilds the blonde knew enough about the new law passed on by the Magic Council... which stated that every guild needed to have more than 10 members. It was in attempts to get rid of those old, already long forgotten guilds that only had a small number of members holding it up so that fresh new guilds could establish.

Wait.

Gulping down a piece of stake Yu turned to look at Mordred, who had forced the waiter to sit by her side while she inspected his purple eye. The scene was tempting him to make some sort of comment, but that would ruin the "annoying friendly" guy persona he had going, "Say, mistress-" Yu cringed from referring to Mordred this way, but he managed to hold it in as she turned to look at him, "Out of curiosity, are there any more members?" Yu asked in a sincere tone.

Mordred nodded, "Yeah! There's Aestus, Julianna, Echo, Aria, Chaos and Iris!" the white-haired teen happily listed off all the members, "But there all out on jobs, well except Chaos. He's probably walking around the city, or at his apartment." Mordred shrugged, forgetting to mention that there was a rule in her guild that made all members check-in with her the day or the day-before they went on a job. If they didn't, they weren't allowed to go.

Upon hearing this Perri froze up suddenly remembering the rule. Perri considered telling her mistress that Chaos had gone on a job, but she thought that would be a bit too-nosy of her so she decided to keep silent for now.

"Oh," was Yu's response. Upon hearing that his gaze fell onto the job board that was a couple feet away from them; there weren't that many considering a guild that was built in such a large city, but there were actually a decent amount of jobs that seemed well-paid on the board. Yu earned most and if not all his jewel through gambling... but sometimes it wasn't enough.

_'Well, I guess being in this lame-ass guild won't be a complete waste of time after all...' _Yu could go on a few jobs, win some easy jewel to gamble and get even more jewel. He wasn't that thirst for money, what he loved more was gambling... making a complete fool of all those idiots who believed in luck and destiny before mocking them with those very idiotic-beliefs was one of the few reasons why he loved to gamble.

Yu frowned lightly, suddenly his appetite gone, '_Fate, destiny, luck... I'm always surprised to find out how many idiots actually cling to them,' _the blonde thought to himself while he glared at the steaks in front of him, almost as if everything going on was their fault.

From her side of the table Perri stared at Yu with suspicion in her eyes, but they quickly changed to that of curiosity... mostly due to why Yu seemed to having a glaring contest with the stakes in front of him. Melody, who was sitting right beside her, was already on her fourth plate.

"You know Melody it's better if you take your time with your food," Perri chirped in with a small smile on her lips, she continued once Melody turned to look at her, "If you take it slow you'll be able to enjoy the food Riley made much better," the black-haired mage suggested,

Melody, who had some chicken wings in her grasp, seemed to consider this for a moment. While she was used to eating as fast as she could maybe taking her time wouldn't hurt... so per Perri's request, the lime-haired girl began to take slow, careful bites from her food before taking her time chewing it.

"So, you know sound magic huh?" Perri asked, going mostly with Riley's claim about the screech spell she used. Perri saw nothing wrong with asking about her magic.

To this Melody nodded before swallowing, "Well... it's Music Magic... BUT! My main magic is Nature magic," the lime-haired woman explained happily before taking a bite of her chicken wing.

"Ah, I see," Perri was impressed she knew two types of magic, well so did she, "That's pretty impressive, to be able to master two types of magic I mean,"

Melody was about to take a bite of her last chicken wing before stopping short, "Well... I'm not a master at them, but I am still pretty strong!" the lime-haired woman boasted proudly.

Before Perri had a chance to respond the large, wooden guild doors suddenly flew opened. Everyone on the table turned to look at the entrance to find a young woman standing there.

Perri quickly began to analyze the unfamiliar person, who seemed very young. Apart from Mordred she seemed to be the youngest one in the building, if Perri had to guess she'd say the girl was about 17 and was around 5'6" in height... a year younger than herself actually. She had a healthy-looking tan to accompany her skinny build with some sharp, messy, yet not overly dramatic golden-blonde hair.

She was a little surprised of the stranger's clothing, as it was really simple despite her being so... pretty. A plain, dreary blue colored t-shirt that had a small black jacket thrown over the top. Below she wore equally-plain jeans with some black sneakers, which seemed a bit worn out.

Mordred, who was sitting on the other side of Perri and was holding a small bag of ice over Riley's purple eye, continued to eye the newcomer who seemed to be just standing there before getting up from her seat, "Riley, please hold it yourself," before Riley had any chance to respond Mordred was already walking towards the blonde.

Riley held the bag of ice onto his eye. This was the first time someone willingly walked into the guild... that wasn't one of their members or part of the Magic Council, so he was really curious on what could this person want. Those thoughts quickly changed to those of dread, as he began cursing his luck that it had to be ANOTHER WOMAN and not a guy... seriously what was up with that?! The guild needed more men, not women!

Everyone but Riley continued to stare at the newcomer as she and their mistress started to talk, which mostly consisted of Mordred asking her if there was anything she could help her with. Both Melody and Perri were curious on what she could want, but Yu was just happy something else was going in the guild... to be honest things were getting boring.

Both Mordred and the blonde talked for a few more seconds before Mor nodded and turned to look at her guild members, "Eh, this will take a second guys! I just need to talk with her in my office," the white-haired girl announced before walking in the direction of her office, with the unfamiliar blonde following right behind the younger teen.

Perri, Melody, and Yu watched them disappear into Mordred's office before the door shut behind them. With that Yu got up from the table before going towards one of farther ones, in which he then proceeded to sit down on a chair and lean back against the wall before crossing his feet over the table; nothing seemed to be going on at the moment and he had nowhere to go, so he decided to just sleep it away.

_'I swear to god something better happen when I wake up'_

With Yu leaving the table Riley decided it was his time to split too, so quickly getting up from his chair the waiter quietly walked towards the bar... figuring that Perri would probably be yearning for a blueberry smoothie soon.

…

"Say Melody, you'd got a place to stay?" Perri turned to look at Melody, who was looking at the door of Mordred's office... almost as if they would come out at any moment, despite just entering.

The lime-haired woman shook her head, "No, I just got here... and I use to just sleep in the woods," Melody explained with a sheepish smile, apart from a few parks Beach City didn't seem to have much trees... so that would be a problem.

Perri giggled lightly, "There's a few unavailable rooms in the guild, so you can ask Mordred for a room if you want," Perri suggested, "Of course you could rent an apartment after going on a few jobs... like me,"

Upon hearing that Melody clasped both of Perri's hands, with a large ear-to-ear smile on her face, "I KNOW! Can I live with you instead? Please! I'll help with the rent!"

Perri was very surprised to hear the sudden proposal, but she wasn't displeased. With the small amount of jobs lately it was hard to pay the rent, but with Melody's help and the recent much better paid jobs now available... maybe she would be able to get the money for this month's rent without a problem, "Uh, sure! If you really want to, I don't mind," Perri replied with a small smile.

"Yay!" Melody cheered, while she liked the outdoors it would be a nice change of pace to sleep in an actual bed...

"So, Melody, want to go on a job now?" Perri asked, figuring they might as well start since there wasn't much going on a guild... plus it's been a few days since she's traveled outside the city.

Melody nodded, "Sure!" the lime-haired woman responded gleefully.

"Alright, let's go pick a job!" Perri exclaimed before getting off her chair, with Melody right behind her the two women quickly went over to the job board and began looking for one they could take.

Xiram Town

Crimson red eyes looked around his hometown, Xiram... which was in ruins. All the buildings in sight looked half-wrecked, with some of the civilians already working on what remained; this was just the entrance part of Xiram, and so he was starting to feel uneasy in what state the rest of the town was in... Especially the central area which is where his dad lived at.

After hearing some giants had been terrorizing his hometown Christmas Yanor had rushed back as fast as possible. He had been traveling around Fiore in the meantime, getting stronger and seeing more of the country he's lived in all his life but just as he was about leave the country, he heard of this.

Wasting no time Chirstmas ran deeper into the town, every now and then passing by a familiar face but paying them no further attention. Some of them turned to look at him but they didn't seem to recognize Christmas, well it made sense; after all he had left five years ago and in terms of looks Christmas had changed quite a bit... his coal-black hair reached passed the nape of his neck and now had a shaggy-look to it, in fact he was surprised that it wasn't falling onto his eyes- and there we go.

Moving away his hair, he wondered if his dad would recognize him... thanks to his magic, he looked all malnourished and very thin... way more then he looked years ago, but considering his dad knew the same magic Christmas figured that back in the day his old man was probably the same.

That's when all of the sudden the earth started to tremble. At first his mind thought it was an earthquake, but Christmas began to remember what had caused all the destruction around him...

All the civilians began to panic; most of them seemed to be running towards the exit of Xiram while others seemed to just be looking for a place to hide. Christmas' quickly scanned the surrounding area, trying to find any sign of the giants... though a large, booming voice quickly grabbed his attention.

"**ALRIGHT PESKY HUMANS, TODAY'S THE QUOTA FOR THE FOOD! WHERE IS IT?!**"

Running in the direction of the voice Christmas eventually arrived to the outskirts of the small town, up in the distance he could clearly see about 4 large figures. They were still far into the distance, but he couldn't help but be slightly impressed on how he could feel their steps and hear them so clearly from so far.

Gritting his teeth Christmas began to consider his options; try to stop the giants, or find his dad and leave the town as fast as possible. Stopping the giants would require him to use his magic... and he'd rather not to do that, especially not with everyone looking at him... plus Christmas doubted the giants would be pushovers as they were known for their incredible endurance, which was only overshadowed by their out of this world strength.

"Shouldn't a guild be helping out with this mess!?" the mage shouted to himself, not really expecting any sort of answer... unless the town hadn't sent a request already there should be mages already taking care of the problem! Right?

"I'm afraid no one will be coming..." an old, raspy-sounding voice came out of nowhere, causing Christmas to turn and face whoever it was.

It was an old man he'd never seen before, he was hunched back and his clothes were ripped all over with spots of dirt too. Christmas was about to ask him what he was doing here, but the elderly man beat him to the punch.

"Thanks to the giants all our resources have plummeted to zero and the economy in this town has hit rock-bottom," the old man spoke before carefully sitting down on a piece of large debris right behind him, "The mayor of this town sent in a request, but the reward is really low considering what must be accomplished... only complete idiots would take such a job," the bitterness of his tone was as clear as day, though the frown on his wrinkled face quickly changed to a small smile, "You should get going young one, the giants will be here at any moment," the elderly man warned Christmas, though it seemed as if he had no intention of running away himself.

Upon hearing the explanation Christmas felt... odd. While it angered him that nobody would be coming, he expected no less. The world revolved around jewel, the larger the amount the better... that's how guild mages worked, all they cared about was making jewel instead of actually helping people. That's probably one of the reasons that in all his time traveling, he never once considered joining a guild.

_'It's all about jewel in the end,'_ the thought made him snicker, though he quickly turned to the old man, "Mister, I suggest you go somewhere else," Christmas advised the elderly man before adjusting the red glove on his right hand and running towards the giants, which were now closer... with each step they took it felt as if the ground would break right open and swallow the town whole.

This is why he had left to travel, to get better at using his magic. If he couldn't even stop these four giants all those five years were nothing but a waste of time...

It seemed as if the group of giants didn't notice him till they were literally right in front of him; Christmas had managed to make it far enough to the outskirts that nobody would be able to spot him using his magic, or so he thought.

"**OOOOOOOH, WELL IF IT ISN'T A PIPSQUEAK! WHAT? YOU GET TIRED OF HIDING AWAY LIKE THE RAT YOU ARE, HUMAN?!**" the large, well-built giant's voice boomed... the ground trembled lightly with his words.

Christmas simply looked up at the behemoth as the other giants behind him snickered, "Xiram is my hometown... I'll stop your attacks here,"

All the giants laughed, but just as one of them was about to say something Christmas reached for his belt and grabbed of one the many gems hanging from it. Before any of the giants could react the male threw the small, black gem into the air in the giant's direction before it exploded and small shadow-based orbs fired into the head giant's face. With all the giants distracted by the attack Christmas quickly ran to the side and got a hold of another gem, this one was green, before throwing it on the head giant's feet; much like the previous gem it exploded, but this time it released a cloud of green that surrounded the giant's feet before large vines erupted from the ground and began surrounding his boots.

Gem Magic. While they lacked power there where a variety of gems that didn't need one's personal magic energy so Christmas carried a few with him and always made sure to restock whenever he ran out. He actually preferred to use them sometimes instead of his real magic, and usually his problems were solved at the end of it.

While Christmas got some more distance between himself and the giants he eyed the feet of the leader, which were already covered in thick vines. The other three seemed to take notice of his location and quickly charged at him; each of the giants held a simple hand weapon.

Christmas threw three white gems towards the giant closest to him, they exploded in mid-air and a mist began to cover most of the area... but the giant's large axe managed to cut through it and make a large cut on the ground, as Christmas had already made sure to have been far away from its range and hidden deep in the mist.

"Alright.. just got to worn them out before-" just as Christmas reached for some more gems he caught sight of a large hand ripping through the mist, before he had time to move back the hand had already gotten a tight hold of him.

The temporary mist eventually vanished and Christmas was now in the grasp of the head giant, who was grinning down at the human while Christmas tried to break out of his hold, "**SUCH A SILLY RAT...DID YOU HONESTLY THINK MAGIC WOULD HARM ME**?!" the bearded giant howled out in laughter before tightening his hold on Christmas, "**NOW I'M GONNA BREAK YA LIKE TWIG, RAT**!"

Christmas' eyes widened before gritting his teeth, to make sure he wouldn't yell out. But before the head giant could do much more one of the other giant's placed a hand on his shoulder, "**HOLD ON BERTHDOLT... WE WERE STRICTLY TOLD NOT HARM ANY HUMANS BY ORLAN; JUST GATHER THE FOOD AND LEAVE**,"

Using his free hand Berthdolt quickly shook off the other giant before grinning viciously at Christmas, "**ORLAN DOESN'T HAVE TO KNOW A THING! JUST LET ME HAVE SOME FUN WITH THIS SHITTY RAT**!" The head giant barked, in which return the other giant back away. Without wasting another moment Berthdolt began to tighten his grip harder on Christmas, who tried his best no to yell out from the pain from being squished by the giant's grip. Christmas couldn't concentrate enough to use a spell, nor could he even reach for one of his gems...

_'...God dammit' _

All Christmas could think about was how he should have used his magic when he had the chance, now it was too late. Christmas figured it would have been a long fight so he decided to go ahead and wear out the enemy with his gems first... obviously that hadn't been the right course of action.

Finally Christmas couldn't hold it in anymore; he yelled out in pain from the feeling his body being crushed by the giant's hand as Berthdolt grinned down at Christmas, obviously amused by the whole scene while the rest of the giants silently waited for their leader to finish.

'_Guess I won't be seeing you, dad_'

…

…

...

"TAKE MY DIVINE PURGE YOU! TAKE IT I SAY!"

This would be the last thing Berthdolt would hear before feeling a powerful, immense hit to the gut and being thrown towards his fellow giants from the pure power of the hit. The attack which threw Berthdolt knocked him down towards his fellow giants , who fell down from the weight of Berthdolt crashing into them.

Christmas was freed from the giant's grasp, but before he could do much of anything a pair of hands got ahold of him bridal-style while in a mid-air fall. The figure quickly landed on the ground with a loud thud before running in the opposite direction of the knocked out giants; Christmas was a bit out of it, so he couldn't get a clear idea on who had saved him.

After a couple of moments the figure laid him down on the grassy ground. Finally getting it together Christmas could see the person had set him down right next to a blonde, who had a muted-looking eye with a long scar over it.

Echo had an unusual light scowl on her usual soft features while she eyed the person they had just saved, "Are you okay?" while her tone was calming, it also had a stern feel to it, "Is there anything broken? Do you feel dazed or anything?" she wouldn't be able to actually do much if he was hurt... she was far from being a healer. But she could use her magic to lower down the feeling of pain.

Christmas took a while to respond, but eventually he nodded, "I'm fine," the crimson-eyed male muttered while looking at Echo, he had no idea who she was but...

"Alright, let's go Aestus," Christmas heard someone speak from right behind him, which he could only guess was the one that had saved him. Out of curiosity Christmas tuned to look at the person, but a bright light momentarily blinded him and before he could get a good look at the person... they had left.

Aestus eyed the guy Julianna had just saved for a couple more moments before turning to look at the giants, with three of them already getting off the ground while the giant Julianna had attacked remained unconscious. Julianna was already running towards them at an incredible speed in one of her take-overs, both hands and feet covered in a light coat of pure energy... but what definitely attracted his attention were the large, white feather wings on her back and the fact she had grown quite a bit in height.

Cracking his large knuckles Aestus chuckled lightly, "Hopefully this will be fun," before charging behind his teammate, leaving alone Echo and Christmas.

One of the giants that had already gotten up was about to reach for his axe, which he had dropped after being pulled down with Berthdolt, but before he could do much of anything Julianna leaped towards him and began inflicting a barrage of punches on his gut with incredible power The giant gritted his teeth before reaching for Julianna, but she easily dodged his two large hands and simply flew up before landing a hard kick on his nose

The giant fell back slightly, momentarily distracted from his nose breaking while Julianna began focusing all her energy onto both her hands, which she had clasped together, once she had enough energy Julianna brought up her intertwined hands and was about to bring them down towards the giant's head.

"ALRIGHT, TAKE THI-"

'_Julianna behind you!'_

While Echo's voice inside her mind did startle her, the numerous explosions going on behind the young woman's is what got her attention. Though before she could react Julianna's vision was blocked by one of the giant's back, who was being thrown back in her direction... the take-over user tried to dodge, but she was caught in the fall and to the displeasure of Julianna she would find out just how heavy a giant is.

Her scream was caught off by another spam of explosions, which had been caused by Aestus who didn't seem to notice Julianna. Aestus was far too busy on the giant he was fighting; which didn't seem to go down as easily as the one he had just defeated.

Aestus was momentarily surprised when the giant, who had been driven back, charged right towards him. Casting off the spell Aestus quickly muttered another spell and both his hands and feet began charging with nuclear energy, which he used to jump back just in time as the giant had thrown a punch directly at him...

After landing the tall male trembled slightly from glancing at the spot of grass he had just been standing at, which was now a large crater created from the pack of the punch. Aestus brought forth both his hands, the nuclear energy now disappearing before a large magic circle appeared right in front of him;

"Cinder Volley!" upon the shout dozens of missiles made of the same energy flew towards the giant. In response the giant moved to the side, figuring they wouldn't be much trouble if they missed him. To the pleasure of Aestus the missiles simply corrected their course before the giant had any time to figure what happened, and in a matter of moments the numerous projectiles began raining down on the behemoth man.

Aestus wasn't done just yet; he wasn't even close to using half of his energy. Not wasting a moment's breathe another similar magic circle appeared in front of him, this time he simply held out one hand before the circle started to crackle with small sparks of electricity.

Why did he use this spell specifically? Maybe it was because it had been a while since he last used it, or maybe he just felt like it. Whatever the reason, Aestus has to admit that this wasn't his brightest moment... getting too caught up in the fight, all Aestus could was watch as a large lightning bolt made of superheated nuclear energy erupted from the circle and headed straight towards the fallen giant... who was barely recovering from the previous attack.

Aestus didn't have a clue on what happened next, because much to his displeasure he was knocked back quite a distance thanks to the spell he had just use. All he could hear was the cry of the giant as the lightning bolt hit him before everything went silent... and eventually he hit the ground, skidding over the grass for a few seconds before coming to a halt.

_'...hmm, not as bad as the first few times I used it,' _Aestus thought with a small smile. Pretty satisfied with himself the tall male got off the ground and gave himself a quick inspection of his clothes, which were a bit tattered here and there but nothing that would bother him. Dusting off some dirt from his pants Aestus glanced at the giant he had just defeated, who was lying on the ground some feet away twitching... though it seemed he would be staying down.

Aestus couldn't help but grin at the sight, "If they were this weak, I would've asked Julianna to let me handle all of them," speaking of Julianna, where was she? She had been fighting off some giant and was about to deal the finishing blow from what he had seen... but he got too caught up in blasting the giant coming after him to-

"AESTUS!" the tall male suddenly heard Echo his other teammate call out to him, but before he could turn to look at Echo the sun seemed to dissapear around him. Looking up all Aestus could see was the large boot of the giant that Julianna had been fighting, which was held up and already coming down on him as if one was about to squish a bug.

Aestus didn't have time to react and all he could do was just stand there... but to his luck, Echo had reached him just in time as the foot was inches away from turning Aestus into a pancake. In a less than a second Echo summoned a small force field around the two as the large foot came down.

Echo held both her hands up, to keep supplying the force field with her energy. The blonde could feel both her stamina and magic energy draining at an alarming rate... the giant wasn't holding back, and even if the force field she had created wasn't breaking the giant's continued applied force was smashing the ground around them. Echo could feel beads of sweat already forming on her forehead, which she ignored and simply gritted her teeth while she got on her knees "A-AESTUS! PLEASE!" she screamed for help from her teammate, who seemed to have frozen up.

Aestus was momentarily shocked but quickly got his act together. He decided not to focus on the small cracks forming on the force field and began to think of a way to get out of this; if he tried any of his spells Echo would most likely get caught in the blast, which wouldn't be good...

_'Crap crap crap crap crap crap,' _Aestus couldn't come up with anything, no matter how much he wacked his brain it wasn't giving him any ideas!

"Aestus..." Echo took a deep breathe, "I've got an idea that will make us last a lot longer... but if we want to get out of this, it's up to you," the short blonde informed her teammate, slightly eyeing the cracks on her force field before turning to look at Aestus.

Aestus nodded, "Alright, just do it,"

Echo didn't give him any sort of response, but simply closed her eyes and tried to concentrate as best as she could, which was pretty difficult considering there was a giant trying to squish them to death. Aestus looked between his teammate and the large foot about to break open the force field, hoping that whatever she was doing would be finished soon.

The cracks on the force field began to grow bigger, and it looked like it was going to break at any moment now. All of the sudden Aestus felt... something, which he could only describe as a tingly sensation... and just like that the cracks on the force field began disappearing and it seemed to grow thicker and larger.

Aestus quickly eyed Echo, who had now opened her eyes and was looking the giant above them, "I made a link between you and myself," the short blonde explained briefly while supplying the force field with new energy, "I've got access to your magic reserves and vice versa... so please find a way to get out of this" Echo pleaded with a small smile, trying her best to look calm.

"Where's Julianna?" Aestus remembered his other teammate, who he had completely forgotten about due to all of this going right now, "Can't she come help us?"

Echo shook her head, and for a moment seemed to hesitate on what she was about to say, "...remember the giant you first knocked out?" while Echo said it as a question, she didn't give Aestus any time to respond, "Long story short, she got trapped in the fall of the giant while you spammed him with that explosive spell,"

"... Oh,"

"I'm actually worried about her, so beat this guy so we can check up on her!" Echo spoke in a much positive tone, though it held a hint of weariness in it... Echo was going over her limits with this spell, even if Aestus had a large magic reserve to feed the force field she had created. But Echo didn't want him to think this was his fault, she wasn't that type of person.

Aestus turned to look at her and nodded, "Alright," he spoke with confidence in his tone.

While Aestus tried to think of a way to get out of this Christmas was having problems of his own... it didn't take him long to realize the trouble the blonde and that tall guy were in. For a moment Christmas wondered where the third person was at, but seeing no sign of their other teammate Christmas rushed towards them as fast as he could...

Until... (of course).

Unlike last time Christmas was able to jump out of the way in time as a giant, who had spotted Christmas running towards the other two mages, attempted to get a hold of him. This giant was the one Aestus had fought first.

"**DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE US GIANTS! LITTLE SPARKS LIKE THAT WON'T BE ENOUGH TO BRING US DOWN!**" the behemoth man bellowed before reaching for Christmas again, who dodged the hand yet again.

As soon as getting away from his range Christmas eyed the giant in front of him, but in a couple of seconds his attention was brought back to those two mages that were about to get squished to death. If he tried to run towards them, they would have to deal with two giants instead of one... that would only worsen things. Seeing no option and not wanting to repeat his previous mistake again, Christmas rolled up both sleeves of his black long-sleeved shirt to fully reveal his arms, which were covered in bandages, in which he proceeded to rip off as the giant got closer to him.

Adjusting the single red glove on his hand Christmas began to mutter a spell, in which response a flowy red liquid began oozing out of him before slowly morphing into a very long, and thick whip-like stream that surrounded him.

Christmas awaited a few more moments, which each one of those seconds the giant got closer, before holding out his hand forward, " Blood Make: Crimson Lash!" At the sudden call of his spell the whip-like stream shot out forward, thanks to Christmas feeding it enough of his blood it had grown to a size big enough that it would make this last part go without a hinch...

In a span of 10-seconds the stream of blood flew towards the giant, with Christmas having a hold of the end of the wip, before it went straight towards the behemoths' man left leg and sliced it off as if the leg was made out of paper. Christmas quickly moved out of the way as the giant let out a pained cry and fell down from the lack of balance.

The ground shook momentarily, but as soon as it settled Christmas wasted no time and Christmas began running towards the two mages in danger as fast as he could, his whip-like stream flowing above him slowly morphing into a longer, but less thicker whip of blood that would slice off this giant's leg too.

Using a lot more blood then usual to pull that off, Christmas feeling a bit dizzy... but he was used to this type of feeling, so Christmas was able to focus on what was up ahead... unfortunately, or maybe fortunately for him his previous confrontation with the other giant would be all the action for him today.

From the ground right behind the giant about to squish Aestus and Echo to death, a very familiar take-over user erupted into the air. With all his attention on the two mages below him, the giant didn't even notice as Julianna flew up higher into the sky and threw her hands up in the air. Christmas has no idea how he could notice from such a distance, but he swears on his live that he saw the woman grin down at the giant as dozens of rays of light began raining down on the giant, who had turn to look up at Julianna by now... from the burns all over his body and the sudden almost-blinding light around him.

Removing his foot from the force field, the behemoth man could only watch as a young human-girl grinned down at him, "As I recall I was about to land the finishing blow... can't leave something half-way done, right?" to this the giant only cried out as the light rays grew stronger by the second... " HOLY JUDGEMENT!" as soon as she shouted out her spell everyone grew momentarily blinded from the sheer power of the light rays raining down on the giant, who screamed in agony out from feeling his whole body burn... almost as if the very light would disintegrate him.

After a couple of moments the light rays began to grow weaker and disappeared. Christmas rubbed his eyelids for a while before turning to look at the scene he had just watching and getting a sigh of...

_'An angel?' _Christmas watched Julianna all wide-eyed as she slowly descended down to the giant, who had luckily enough been knocked down literally inches away from Aestus and Echo... who still had the force field up. As soon as she hit the ground Julianna took off her take-over and had shrank back down to her regular height, with her attire replaced with her lavender floral kimono.

Julianna slowly walked up her two teammates through the smashed ground, with Echo already dissolving the force field and remaining on her knees... she had used way too much stamina and energy, so the small blonde felt kind of exhausted.

The black-haired mage eyed Echo before smirking down at her, "Don't I get a 'thanks' at least?" Julianna teased slightly while holding out her hand, which the blonde quickly took with a smile on her face.

Helping her up on her feet, Echo let out a tired sigh before turning to look at her teammate, "Thank you so much Julianna, we would be history if it weren't for you," the blonde sincerely thanked her , which Julianna seemed to be enjoying. She wasn't the type that liked her ego being fed, but there were times like this where she was glad to have done something.

A couple of moments after that the two females turned to look at the male of their group, whose mood seemed to have gone. Noticing both his teammates looking at him Aestus rubbed the back of his head, "... I'm sorry guys... if you hadn't shown up Julianna, me and Echo would be dead...," at the end of his sentence the tall male turned his back on the two.

The group remained silent for a few moments, mostly due to Aestus acting so... depress. It didn't sound like him, usually he spoke with such a positive attitude and confidence in his tone, which tended to give people this idea that he had no worries whatsoever on his mind... but it seemed Aestus knew very well when he screwed up.

Out of nowhere Aestus suddenly felt a hand pat his back, looking back he could see that it was Julianna, who was smirking up at him, "I admit I didn't like being almost squished to death by an unconscious giant... but, well everything's okay now! So don't be so down about it big guy," the young woman reassured her teammate with a thumbs-up.

Echo smiled at the two, "Yeah Aestus! Mistakes happen sometimes, we just got to learn from them... so be more careful next time okay?" the short blonde placed a hand on her teammate, trying her best to cheer him up.

All of the sudden Aestus could feel his cheeks redden slightly, though he smiled down at the two and nodded, sincerely better now, "Don't worry, I'll be more... careful of my surroundings next time, "the tall reassured them with a sheepish smile, he was still feeling a bit bad but Julianna was right; everyone in his team was fine and nobody ended up as a human pancake.

Seeing her friend all better now Julianna grinned, "Alright! Time to take care of the res-" the young woman paused for a moment, though to make sure they weren't about to sneak right behind her Julianna began to look all around them... but all she could see was the giant right beside them.

Aestus blinked, "I think the other three ran away," the tall male pointed out in a blunt tone, seeing no sign of the rest.

"Yeah, they did. I managed to catch a glimpse of them running away when the light weakened, " Christmas spoke out of nowhere as he approached the trio, his bandages were placed back on both his arms and his sleeves were rolled down. Well it was more of the two giants helping up the one Christmas had fought, which was missing part of his leg... which the giant seemed to have taken with him. All that remained was a large blood stain on the grass nearby, which none of the Victory Tree members noticed.

The trio eyed Christmas for a moment, but Echo was the first one to remember him, "Oh yeah, you're the one Julianna saved, right?" The small blonde asked with a soft smile.

Christmas nodded.

"So are you also mage?" Aestus asked, curious on the matter.

Christmas nodded.

Julianna blinked, "Why didn't you help Echo and Aestus, then?" the young woman asked as she began to glare at Christmas.

"I was fighting a giant, but I was on my way over before you popped out of the ground," Christmas stated flatly, but hoping this person in particular wouldn't think badly of him.

That surprisingly did the trick to remove any negative feelings towards him, "Oh, okay then," Julianna responded with a weak yawn before stretching out her hands, "So what's your name anyways?" the young woman asked casually.

"Christmas,"

Echo blinked, "Christmas?"

"Christmas?" Aestus asked, sincerely confused.

Julianna seemed as if she was about to burst out laughing, but she managed to hold it in, "Christmas?"

"Christmas," the crimson-eyed male repeated.

Julianna smirked lightly and placed a hand on her hip, "So, were you like born in Christmas?" she asked with a small smile.

"I was," Christmas nodded lightly with the outmost seriousness.

Echo smiled lightly, "That sounds nice" the small blonde chirped in.

Julianna chuckled lightly, "Nah, that means you only get one set of presents!" the young woman pointed out in a way where it seemed as if that was the worst thing ever.

Aestus seemed to think about, but nodded after a while, "That's true," the tall male stated, though he didn't seem to care that much on the matter.

"I never really cared about presents," Christmas defended with a tired look, while he was used to using such amounts of blood it always tired him slightly... plus, before this fight he had run all the way to Xiram from another town a couple miles away, so he was kind of tired.

"Fair enough," Julianna responded in a casual tone before feeling her stomach growl, which made her clutch her gut, "I'm hungry... what do we do with this guy?"

Echo looked at the fallen giant, "Um... we could ask the townspeople for rope and stuff to tie him down, so that we can interrogate him later," the small blonde suggested.

"Interrogate him?" Christmas questioned.

Echo nodded, "Yeah, usually giants live in towns... such as us, so there's a whole village of them on this deal. We got to figure out why, otherwise they'll just come back when we leave," the blonde explained calmly, though once she realized everyone was looking at her she started to get a bit shy.

"Sounds like a plan," Julianna supported the idea, "But one of us would need to stay back, you know so he doesn't try to run away" the young woman pointed out.

"I'll do it," Aestus volunteered himself before anyone could.

Echo looked up at him, "You sure?"

"Yeah, you guys go ahead... I'll wait here, I still got plenty of energy left." the tall male defended, it was obvious that nothing anyone said would make him change his mind on the matter.

Julianna snickered, "Same here! I would stay myself if I wasn't so hungry," she responded casually before turning in the direction of the town, this was half-true. That last attack sort of wore her out... and while she still had energy left, she didn't feel like fighting anymore today, "Anyways, we'll bring you back something to eat, so take care," the young woman waved her teammate lightly goodbye before walking towards Xiram.

Echo waved goodbye at him as well before following behind Julianna, with Christmas a few steps behind them. He didn't know why, but people had come... and if it wasn't for them he would be a goner, and so would this village. The least he could do was buy them a meal... right? Well, he hadn't voiced this out but he would do it once they arrived somewhere to eat.

Christmas blushed a bit when he heard his own stomach growl, though his blush started to fade once he realized they hadn't noticed. Looking off at the distance Christmas was surprised to see the sunset... wondering how on earth time seemed to just fly, the crimson-eyed male continued to follow silently behind the two women.

"By the way Echo..." Julianna spoke up out of nowhere, which quickly caught the curiosity of Echo as she turned to look at her teammate, "Don't take this the wrong way, but shouting out WATCH OUT is a lot more distracting then helpful," the young woman pointed out.

Echo's eye widened slightly before her gaze fell on the ground, "Sorry about that... I'd figured that since we made the link, I could help from the sidelines since I'm not much of a fighter," the blonde spoke in an embarrassed tone, obviously down about not actually helping Julianna.

Julianna waved her off, "It's fine, don't be down about it," the young woman reassured her friend, " Do try to tell me in some other way that isn't distracting, though," Julianna teased lightly, in which Echo only looked at her and nodded before they arrived in Xiram.

"Oh? You're coming with us Christmas?" Julianna turned to look at the crimson-eyed male, who only nodded.

"That's cool,"

Just outside Spider Monkey Lair

Aria let out a tired yawn, "Man, that tired me out ya guys ," the redhead rubbed the back of her head while they continued walking, the trio had made it to the hidden valley that was hidden deep in the cavern, but despite it being underground Aria could look up and see it was night. This was mostly due to the large hole on the ceiling, though it looked nearly impossible to climb. Aria could only imagine that unless someone had a death wish, nobody would reach the valley from above either.

The trio continued their walk till Iris spotted a large, well-fortified building up ahead. Through the windows located all over it, she spotted lights and could make out some of the voices... which were loud. The pink haired girl thought that maybe Chaos would take them to the side and between the three, formulate a plan to safely raid the dark guild.

Iris began to worry when Chaos simply continued on his way. If any of the thieves looked outside, they would be able to see Chaos despite it already being dark... this was due to the large, white fedora, the long matching-colored trench-coat that was over a purple vest. Maybe if he had worn all black just like his pants and boots, he would be able to sneak up on them.

"Um... Chaos? Aren't we going to ambush them?" the pink haired girl questioned Chaos, who didn't even acknowledged her, "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you-"

"Were going to attack them head on? Of course," Chaos stated flatly, and instead of slowing down his pace got faster as they neared the building.

Aria, who was walking right besides Iris, had a huge grin on her face upon hearing the S-class mage, "Wow grumpy pants, I didn't think you had in ya!" the red head cheered and left Iris behind to walk besides Chaos, already liking the sound of his plan.

The pink haired girl widened her eyes, not as enthusiastic as her red-headed friend, "Err... Chaos? I know you're an S-class but... I don't think we can take on a whole dark guild ourselves," Iris admitted shyly, despite going against the idea she continued to follow after the two.

Chaos didn't turn to look at Iris, but he did roll his eyes, "Iris, I'm about to tell you something," not giving his teammate any time to answer, the mossy-haired male continued, "You know why this was an S-class job? Because these guys are like cockroaches... they know how to hide themselves well and move when the Magic Council finally has a lead on them," Chaos explained coldly, though there was a hint in his tone that Iris couldn't quite make out.

Aria's grin grew larger as they neared the large metal doors of the guild. Seeing how close they were now, Iris decided to remain closer to her teammates and moved right besides Iris.

Here we go.

Chaos, with one leg, kicked opened the doors. All the chatter and hollering that had been going on in the building down in an instant when the doors flew opened, none of their thieves were out on any jobs today so there was no reason whatsoever for someone to be entering the building. Those on the lower floor quickly caught sight of Chaos and his two teammates; though most were still slightly panicked the thieves began to realize it was only some guy and two women. They didn't know how, but they had found their location... would they be moving bases? Yeah, they would. That's how Spider Monkey worked. This was the first time someone actually found them, but this changed nothing... there were only 3 of those guys and Spider Monkey had over 100 members at the moment.

Before moving to another base... they would leave three tattered corpses once the Magic Council raided this hideout, which would be long-empty of any Spider Monkey members.

Chaos looked around the guild, noticing a lot more members then he expected, but nothing that wavered his confidence. Nobody seemed to move, neither the guys on the first floor nor the ones on the second floor. Taking off both his fedora and trench coat, Chaos smirked at a few thieves from a table nearby.

"As I was saying, these guys are like cockroaches," Chaos stated flatly to the two women behind him, "And just like cockroaches, I'm going to start squishing these little bastards,"

Iris began to ponder if Chaos was mentally sane while Aria seemed as if she was about to shit her pants from excitement alone, though before anyone had any time to question the situation anymore all of the thieves got up from their respective seats and the nearest ones to the trio, charged with deadly-looking weapons in hand.

One thief in particular got close enough to Chaos and was about to stab him with a dagger, but before he even had a chance to Chaos quickly charged towards the thief and easily dodged his blade; Not wasting a single second the mossy-haired male landed a hard punch on the thief's jaw.

The thief fell back while clenching his jaw, but not interested on this member anymore Chaos simply looked up and saw a mob of these guys charging right at him, which caused him to grin, "I guess it's going to be quantity over quality this time," Chaos spoke with a devilish smirk before charging towards the rest of the thieves.

Xiram Town

To the surprise of the three, the town had seen the whole fight and was overjoyed with finally getting mages to help them. After many teary thank you's from all the villagers, the three mages were invited to a small restaurant nearby to an all you can eat buffet in courtesy of the business owner... much to Christmas and Julianna's pleasure.

Echo was meh, the blonde was just happy to have helped all these people. Though she was feeling quite hungry, so Echo saw no harm in taking a free meal.

Much like expected Julianna ordered many different types of all the types of desserts on the menu while Christmas went for more meaty options; ordering things such as steaks, chicken, and a hamburger as an example. Julianna couldn't help but be slightly surprised, since Christmas didn't seem as the type to eat so much...

It seemed these two would get as much out of this as possible.

Echo got a salad; she said she might order something spicy afterwards.

They had told the chef to cook up some random dishes for their other teammate, Aestus, who was guarding the unconscious giant. Echo offered herself to take the food, but the owner got his 10-year old son to do it.

While the three ate in peace and tried their best to ignore the fact most the building was already gone Christmas, who had just finished one of his hamburgers, grew curious on a certain subject... the crimson-eyed male was surprised this thought was just coming to mind, but he figured that if there was ever a time to speak up it would be now, "Say... um, are you guys guild mages?" Christmas asked hesitantly, unsure on what answer he wanted to hear.

It was Echo who responded, since Julianna was busy with a chocolate cake, "Yeah, we're from Beach City-"

"YOU GUYS ARE PART OF RED CANE?!" the crimson-eyed male shouted out from pure shock alone, something way out of character of him... it's not like he was a fan of Red Cane or anything, but Christmas had heard many amazing things about the guild; though he was led to believe Red Cane disappeared years ago, so those rumors weren't true huh?

Echo seemed to hesitate for a moment, but she shook her head, "No... we're actually part of Victory Tree," the blonde replied with a small smile.

"Victory Tree?" Christmas questioned, cocking up an eyebrow.

Echo let out a tired sigh, "Never heard of us, huh?" while she asked the question it wasn't like she was expecting any answer other than...

"Uh, no. Sorry," the crimson-eyed mage muttered, deciding that perhaps asking this wasn't such a good idea.

The blonde shook her head, "It's fine, we're still sort of a new guild... so I'm not surprised to hear you haven't heard of us," Echo reassured the crimson-eyed male with a smile, to make sure he didn't they he had offended them or something.

Christmas decided to change the subject, though it would be weird if he changed it to some unrelated matter, so he decided to ask, "So... how is your master like?" the crimson-eyed male asked, deciding there would be nothing wrong with asking such a question.

Echo blinked and seemed to think about it for a few moments. Echo tried figuring out what to say about her mistress, Mordred V. Harmonia, "Uh... she's really...adorable," the blonde unintentionally said what she usually thought about Mor but Echo quickly realized that might embarrass her mistress, "Notjustthatofcurse! Mordred's a really great master; she cares for everyone in the guild!" Echo quickly added that part in, to make sure Christmas didn't think less of them.

Adorable? That was certainly a first, is all that Christmas could think as he eyed the blonde... who looked really nervous all of the sudden.

"She's strong too,"

Much to everyone's surprise it had been Julianna who had spoken up. The young woman was licking off some chocolate, which had gotten on her hand and fingers, before she continued, "I'd rather you not ask how I know this, but Mordred's strong despite how young she is... like really strong, far stronger than me," Julianna admitted with a sheepish smile, it wasn't like she was embarrassed of the fact... but it felt weird describing his mistress as such, as usually the white-haired mistress was such a child (and that's how she liked her).

Upon hearing such a claim both Christmas and Echo's curiosity perked up, though it was Echo who spoke... since this was the first time she's heard of someone knowing her mistress magic, "Wow, that's amazing! What magic does she use?" the blonde asked, Echo had no idea why she hadn't just asked her mistress already.

While Julianna proceeded to lick off some chocolate from her other hand, Christmas frowned lightly from his side of the table, far stronger than her? But she managed to take out two giants without even going all out... this fact disturbed him slightly; he had no idea why though. Was it because it looked as if his goal to become strong seemed much farther away? But it wasn't like Christmas had a thirst for power, though he spent five years training... why? So that he could master his magic and become strong to make his parents proud.

That's all there was to it.

Before Christmas had any time to think much more on the matter Julianna had finally finished licking off the remaining chocolate, turned to Echo and spoke, "...do you think the chef would get annoyed if I ordered another free cake?"

"Julianna!" Echo huffed, already on the edge of her seat to know her mistress magic.

The young woman shook her head before chuckling lightly, "Just kidding! Sorry, I just love teasing ya," Julianna spoke with a cheeky grin before laying her head on the table.

"It's no problem...but please tell us already," the blonde pleaded, she didn't know why the subject interested her so much out of nowhere... but a part of her felt like she needed to know this.

Julianna rolled her eyes, "Fine I'll spill the beans... though you could just ask her, you know. It's not like she keeps it a secret," the young woman muttered grumpily before letting out a tired yawn;

"Just like me, Mordred uses Take-Over... I think its name was Grand Devil, or something like that" Julianna spoke in a tired tone, already oddly sleepy, " I have no idea what Take-Over she used that day, but she totally kicked my ass," the young woman pondered that last part for a second, unsure if that counted since she hadn't really been in control.

"I don't remember much, "well, to be more exact... nothing, "But I will say this... Mor can be very vicious if she wants to," Julianna spoke with a lot more seriousness then she usually spoke in, though all the young woman had to go by was the state her body had been in once she was defeated by Mordred.

Out of pure instinct she turned to look at the night sky, which was quite easy to do considering the building was missing half of its structure. Echo and Christmas simply eyed the young woman, none of two dared to speak at the moment. The stars were out already and due to most of the light being brought in by small candles and a few torches lay here and there; it was easy to enjoy the starry sky to the fullest.

Julianna pouted, "If she wasn't trying to restrain me, she could have easily killed me off..." she mumbled, though that was mostly due to growing very tired already, "That's how powerful Mordred is... I honestly pity the fool who would dare anger our mistress,"

Victory Tree

She didn't know what had brought this on, but Mordred continued pick her nose without a care in the world. It's not like she enjoyed doing such a task, but there was no tissue in sight and honestly this booger was bothering her... so yeah.

Yeah.

From the opposite side of her desk Emiki Saitama, the young blonde who had walked into the guild hours ago, simply watched the young teen with stoic eyes... she wondered what had brought this on all of the sudden, though like she usually did Emiki was simply staring off into space to distract herself. After telling the head of the guild that she wished to join its ranks, the white-haired fourteen year old had brought her to her office and asked some... unusual questions.

"So Emiki... you got a boyfriend?"

"No,"

"Did you happen to pass by the local market? I really want Riley to cook me up some salad, but I guess you don't cook salad... you mix it,"

"No,"

"Do you use make-up? I can't tell, I'm too young for that stuff,"

"No,"

"Got any hobbies?"

"No,"

"Are you a woman?"

"Yes,"

"Out of curiosity, you know how to give a massage? My back's hurting,"

"No,"

"How much you weight?"

"70kg,"

"Do _you_ eat salad?"

"No,"

"Do I look fat to you?"

"No,"

That was the last thing Mordred had asked her before going completely silent for hours, but by no means did she remain still. The young teen played with many items on her desk, almost as if a girl would do with her dolls... but the white-haired girl's imagination seemed a bit weird, and Emiki simply watched as the two pencil's on Mordred's hands proceeded to do... something, Emiki wasn't sure.

After that Mordred just kept playing around before getting bored and for about an hour now, she had been picking her nose.

Emiki didn't mind, she enjoyed the silence... which was finally broken by a sudden blaring of a random alarm, which Mordred seemed surprised to hear. Pulling one of the drawers of her wooden desk, the young mistress pulled out a small sphere-shape lacrima, which if Emiki was seeing right had the exact amount of time that passed since entering this office.

Mordred turned off the lacrima and proceeded to put it back in her drawer before smiling brightly at Emiki, who simply returned the smile with her usual calm expression, "Congrats! You passed the test! I'm honestly a bit surprised though, I didn't think you would stick by so long," the young mistress praised Emiki, who didn't seem as happy as Mor thought she would be.

The test had been made with Riley in mind... since he was bad with women; she figured that they should start accepting males only till they had a decent amount of both. Of course being in no condition to turn down members, she had created a test that would be strictly for female appliers... this would separate the good from the bad! Only those with a patient heart had room in this guild!

Thinking about it more carefully, Mordred realized just how stupid this test was and decided to scrap it for good. Screw Riley, she needed more members.

Mordred was suddenly reminded of Emiki's presence, so she cleared her throat before looking at the young blonde, "I'm impressed with your patience! You must really want to join my guild!" the white-haired girl replied with a cheeky smile.

"Yes,"

…

"... Okay! Now, time for the real questions!" Mordred was slightly disappointed that hadn't fed her ego as much as she thought it would, but whatever, "Anyways... I must know due to the paperwork I have to fill out for all my members, but where are ya from?" the young mistress asked Emiki with a small smile.

Oddly enough Emiki seemed to think about it a bit, since she didn't reply with the usual quickness she did with the other questions, "... Minstrel," the blonde finally replied with her usual stoic-ness, which Mor had gotten used to by now.

"Oooh! My home kingdom! Where from exactly?"

Again, she seemed to think about it for a few more seconds... before responding, "Newgate," was Emiki's one-worded answer.

"Capital huh?" Mordred questioned, though she didn't give any time for Emiki to reply, "Well... Minstrel's doing pretty bad in terms of economy I've heard, especially the capital," it made sense to Mor on why Emiki would travel so far from there to here, Fiore. Of course Mordred moved here for different reasons... because over there, guilds didn't exist; the only ones allowed to learn magic in Minstrel were noble families, the royal guard, and a few other exceptions directly allowed by the king.

Anyone else was executed.

Mordred shook her head, "Anyways! Onto the final question... do you know magic? And if so, what?" the young mistress asked the emotionless blonde.

For once in the entire time Emiki had arrived in her guild Mor finally noticed an emotion glint in her eyes, though it was just for a slight moment Emiki had seemed a bit... nervous. Regarding the question of her magic Emiki looked as if she was taking her time compared to how fast she had answered her other questions, despite this it hadn't even been a minute yet.

While Mor found it a tad suspicious, she didn't mind. After all, if Emiki wasn't lying to her she wasn't even supposed to know magic... so the young mistress understood how nervous she must be, despite her concealing it pretty good. Though Mordred was curious on what type of magic someone of neither noble blood nor part of the royal guard could learn in Minstrel...

Finally Emiki spoke, "... I do not know magic," the blonde stated flatly.

The young mistress blinked, "Oh... well, sorry you can't join my guild then," Mordred replied with disappointment in her tone.

To this the blonde got up, "Okay," was Emiki's one-worded reply before heading towards the door of her office. Emiki figured this would happen with her answer, but despite the outcome the blonde did not regret her response... now it would be a matter of going somewhere else to look; should she try her luck here, or go to another city?

As Mordred watched her leave the young mistress couldn't help but feel bad. She had made Emiki go through all those hours for nothing. To add to that Emiki was from Minstrel, Mordred knew just how bad things were over there... she knew just how hard life was like for those that weren't part of noble families or the king.

She wanted to help her out; Mor doubted that anyone would in this city would give her a job...

Just as Emiki was about the exit the small office, she felt a pair of soft, small hands grab one of her own. Turning to look at the young mistress, who was preventing her from leaving the office, Emiki cocked up an eyebrow, but before she had any time to question if the teenager needed something from her Mor spoke;

"Um... I know it isn't as good as being a mage, but how about becoming staff for my guild?" Mordred asked with a small smile, and like expected Emiki's calm expression remained as the blonde continued to listen, "You would have a place to stay, I have some small rooms that I didn't find any use for. Not only that, you would have a pretty good paycheck and your three meals every day," the young mistress reassured Emiki, who remained as stoic as ever... but Mor could tell she had been at least listening to her.

Surprisingly enough, Emiki didn't seem to think about it much and simply nodded, "Sounds good," the blonde replied calmly as she looked down at the young mistress.

"Alright!" Mordred cheered before running towards her desk, reaching for one of the bottom drawers before pulling out a small key and walking back to Emiki, "Here," the white-haired teen handed the key to Emiki, "This is the key for your room! It's right next to Riley's room, so don't worry about not being able to find it," the young mistress reassured the blonde, who kept staring at the key in her hands before shoving it into one of her pocket's.

"Who is Riley?" Emiki asked calmly.

"He's your co-worker! Riley is also part of staff and pretty much does everything," yeah, this all worked out in the end! Emiki had a place to stay and work wouldn't be so hard for Riley, "Out of curiosity, do you know how to cook?"

"No,"

"Oh," Mor responded, half-expecting that answer for some reason, "How about at being a waitress?"

"No,"

"Using a broom?"

"Looks simple enough," Emiki replied calmly.

The young mistress stared at the blonde for a few more moments, but she shook her head and smiled at Emiki, "Well, whatever! Riley will just teach you so everything will be fine!" Mordred reassured the blonde before opening the door, getting a hold of one of Emiki's hands, and walking out of her office... with Emiki letting herself be pulled into the guild hall.

For some reason Mordred expected to see her guild members all desperate and lost without her being around, though she was pretty surprised when she saw Melody and Perri at a table, with both of them drinking what seemed like a blueberry smoothie and Yu standing right beside the board... seemingly looking for a job.

"Hey guys!"

"Oh, hi mistress," Perri replied, for a moment diverting her gaze from the book in front of her to greet Mordred.

Melody waved very-energetically at Mor from her seat, "HI!" The lime-haired woman shouted out her greeting.

"Hello... erm, Mordred," Yu felt like barfing the last time he referred to her as mistress, so this time he would call her out by her name. Thanks to this it was easier to fake a smile at Mordred before his eyes landed on Emiki, who stood right beside the young mistress. Yu was honestly curious on what the hell could have transpired in that room that would take them so long to come out, but right now only those two knew... well, anything to kill his boredom, "So what took you so long?" the blonde asked calmly while eyeing the two, though his gaze eventually fell onto Mordred.

"Nothing much," the young mistress replied casually, "Emiki was just completing the test of endurance is all," Mordred replied with a small yawn, looking over the clock at the bar she noted that it was already pretty late.

…

…

…

Yu blinked, "Um, what?"

"Doesn't matter anymore! Everyone, meet Emiki!" While Yu seemed to have frozen up Melody and Perri looked at Emiki, who in return quickly analyzed everyone in the room before raising up a hand and waving at everyone lightly;

"Hello," the blonde greeted everyone in her usual calm tone, it would be more troublesome if she didn't at least greet them.

"She'll be helping out Riley with stuff, so you'll be seeing her a lot!" Mordred informed the current members in her guild, though she didn't see Riley anywhere, "Where's Riley?" the young mistress asked to no one in particular.

"In the kitchen," Perri informed her mistress, "I think he said something about pan cakes..." the young woman continued before placing a finger on her chin, making sure that she remembered that correctly.

"PANCAKES?! YEAH!" This day just kept getting better and better, honestly she wouldn't be surprised if a genie popped out of nowhere and granted her three wishes, "But they can wait for a bit longer; RILEY! GET OVER HERE!"

A few seconds after the call Riley could be seen exiting the kitchen and walking in Mordred's direction, though he hesitated a bit one he realized the girl who had walked in a few hours ago was right next to Mor. But Riley quickened his pace once Mordred called him out as a turtle, so trying his best to ignore the young woman next to his mistress, the waiter spoke, "What is it, Mo-erm, mistress?"

Mordred didn't mind the almost-slip up and simply introduced Riley to Emiki, "She'll be staff just like you! Help you out with cooking, waitressing (what), and keeping the guild sparkling!" the young girl reassured Riley, who's face considerably paled upon fully processing the news.

Riley managed to keep it together, barely sure but he hadn't run away yet... though for some reason, despite Emiki standing right besides Mordred, the waiter felt... odd, to say in the least. While he tried not to make direct eye contact with Emiki, Riley didn't feel the way he usually did whenever he was around a female near his age; not the slightest hint of panic crossed his mind.

Emiki's azure eyes glanced at Riley, who had turned to look at her. The wild-haired male beat her by a couple of inches, but nothing that would make her seems like a dwarf next to him. Well, it's not like she cared much about stuff like that anyways, "Hello, my name is Emiki," the blonde spoke in her usual calm tone, deciding she should probably get the greetings out of the way so they wouldn't bother with it later on.

Riley nodded, "I'm Riley... nice to meet you," the waiter spoke with a slight hint of friendliness, which surprised Mordred a bit, " So when is she going to start, mistress?" Riley asked Mor, who had been staring at him for a while now.

The white-haired teen shook her head, "Right now actually! She'll help you with the pancakes!" Mordred proclaimed while looking at the two. Emiki simply nodded at her mistress much like Riley before Mor walked away towards the rest of her members... suddenly remembering something.

"So... do you know how to make pancakes?" Riley asked with curiosity in his tone, turning to look at the blonde she seemed to have looked off into space.

Emiki shook her head, "No," the seventeen-year old spoke in a calm demeanor before turning to look at the kitchen door.

"Oh, I'll have to teach you then," Riley muttered to himself before walking towards the kitchen, which Emiki figured she should follow after; to be honest the blonde would rather be alone in some secluded corner of the guild, preferring not to interact with anyone. Sadly this job would require her to have some guidance from this Riley person, as she didn't know much about the kitchen. Would it be easier for her to leave and try her luck somewhere else? Maybe, but this guild was perfect in her tastes... nobody out of this city seemed to know if it's existence, and as part of staff she wouldn't be expected to fight if danger ever arose, so that meant there wouldn't be a need for her to use... whatever she had, to be honest Emiki had a slight difficulty calling it magic but nothing else really fit it.

Tolerating interactions with her co-worker would be a slight price to pay.

As the two left for the kitchen Perri watched from her table; not once expecting for the phenomenon that took place earlier that day to repeat itself. This was the second woman Riley didn't act as if her very presence would kill him if he got too close to them; it's not as the topic really fired her up, but Perri couldn't help but question what Emiki and Melody had in them that no other female in the guild did.

Apart from Emiki's anti-social nature and Melody acting a bit out of it sometimes, nothing came to mind.

Mordred sat right next to Melody, who seemed too busy finishing the rest of her blueberry smoothie to notice her, "Say I never did give you guys a rank, did I?" the young mistress referred to Melody and Yu, with the blonde the only one answering her question.

"No, you didn't," Yu stated flatly, switching his view between the job board besides him and Mor, who sat with the only other two members at the guild.

"Oh," Mor replied lamely before placing a finger on her chin, Perri and Yu watched her with slight curiosity while Melody finished her blueberry smoothie, "I know! Yu, you'll be an A-class!" the white-haired teen proclaimed without a hint of doubt.

Yu shrugged, "Sounds fair," it's not like he was aiming to be the very best like no one ever was, the blonde male didn't really care about difficult or dangerous jobs. All Yu was looking for were ones that paid well or seemed easy to do, so either lots of jewel or some easy jewel would be fine with him. Plus it seemed as if all the jobs on here didn't surpass A-class.

After telling his newest member his rank Mor turned to look at Melody, who had been simply looking at the young mistress. In return the white-haired teen stared at Melody with very focused eyes while Perri sat on the opposite side of the table, with her book put to the side for a few moments; her mistress really had a knack at guessing ones overall power, so most of the ranks she gave were spot on.

"Hmm... Melody, you will be S-class,"

Perri blinked, "Um... what?" the young woman questioned her mistress with wide eyes.

With Melody cheering Mordred was unable to hear Perri, who continued to stare at the two from the other side of the table. To be honest Mordred felt that maybe she shouldn't make anyone S-class just yet, but once the exam started next month she would be able to see for sure if those she had chosen deserved the title.

Plus she had no S-class jobs, so there was nothing to worry about in the topic of her members going on jobs they might not be ready for.

If Yu wasn't pretending to be some friendly guy, he would be laughing his ass off from the expression on the girl with the book. But since that wasn't possible at the moment instead Yu tried to concentrate on a job, while lightly humored by the scene just now the blonde figured that if he didn't get out of the guild and on a job like right now... he would die of boredom.

Two jobs in particular interested in him, but they seemed like something that white-haired kid would make him take someone along for the trip, and he didn't want to be with any of these idiots for that long. In that matter, would she even allow him to go on a job? Mordred had placed the Mark of Hades on him, so as far as that went at the moment she shouldn't have any worries about him leaving forever. Unless she's anticipated that he's already planning to look for an uncaster...

Back with Perri, the young woman shook her head lightly; it's not as if it bothered that Melody had instantly gotten S-class, but it just surprised her... like a lot. But enough of that, she decided that it was about time she informed Mor of the job they would be taking tomorrow, "Um... Mistress,"

"What is it Perri?" Mor asked casually while she patiently awaited the pancakes to arrive, it's not she expected for them to be done so soon... but that's just how she was.

"Me and Melody are going on a job tomorrow, " Perri informed Mor, who had turned to look at her instead of the kitchen door upon hearing the blueberry-lover, "If you would like to see the job request, just ask" the young woman spoke to her mistress, who shook her head lightly after that.

"No need Perri, just be careful you two okay?" the white-haired teen spoke with a light smile, "I wish you the best of luck tomorrow," Mordred told the two mages, who seemed pleased from hearing her approval.

Xiram Village

After finishing their small meal Christmas told the two mages that he needed to check on his dad, so the trio parted way with Christmas heading to the central area of the town while the two women headed to the outskirts of the town, where Aestus was guarding the giant.

Once they made it far enough Echo spotted many townspeople with rope around the giant, which they gad tied around the behemoth man to keep him down. To be honest, while she herself had suggested the idea, Echo doubted that no amount of normal rope would keep this guy down once he woke up.

Julianna let out yawn, trying her best to shoo away the drowsiness, "You do know that no amount of rope will keep a giant down, right?" the take-over user questioned her blonde friend, which Echo nodded in approval.

"It's just to restrain him for a bit, I'm hoping we can talk this out," Echo responded in a calm tone, "Otherwise, I'll just use my magic to get him to tell us why they are attacking Xiram," the blonde shrugged. She was momentarily surprised after realizing that in all their time together, Echo had been pretty much acting like the leader of their small team... the empathy-mage never was one to take charge like this, and she began to wonder why; probably because Aestus and Julianna weren't the type to take charge, while both mages were a lot more qualified to lead their small group.

Echo was brought out of her thoughts when she heard a loud rumble up ahead; the civilians of Xiram began to run away into the town while the giant began to get up. Before the giant could get all the way up Aestus, who had been sitting a couple feet away, charged the behemoth man with both hands and feet covered in nuclear energy before bringing down his fist on the giant's large chest, which seemed to do the trick as he fell back down.

Both women quickly walked towards the scene, Julianna already ready to transform if the situation called for it, but it seemed Aestus had it under control as he slowly got off of the giant and turned to look at his two teammates, who finally reached him.

"Where's that Christmas guy?" the tall male managed to speak first, he was curious on where that guy had gone to for no real reason in particular.

Julianna was the one to answer his question, though she was eyeing the giant to make sure it didn't attack them from behind, "Christmas left to go see his dad, said his house was in the central area of the town, " the young woman informed her male teammate, "He did say he would meet back up with us though,"

"Ah, okay,"

Echo passed her two friends and got closer to the giant, "Did you knock him out?" the small blonde questioned since she wasn't sure.

"Not totally..." Aestus said, a bit unsure of it himself, "The giant's still weak from Julianna's attack earlier, so I wouldn't worry about him getting up," the tall male spoke bluntly.

Out of nowhere the trio heard a loud, but weary-sounding voice "_DO NOT BE SO SURE... HUMAN,_" the behemoth man suddenly spoke, though his tone did not match his words.

Aestus and Julianna were about to attack him again, but Echo managed to stop them by quickly questioning the giant, "Um... my name is Echo, what is yours?" the small blonde asked the behemoth man, a bit of cautiousness in her tone.

Upon hearing that the giant chocked out a few laughs, obviously amused by her action, "_HEHEHE... YOU'RE LUCKY I'M NOT BERTHDOLT ... THE NAME IS REINHART," _the giant spoke in a tired tone, almost as if he would go unconscious all over again.

Her two teammates simply remained behind the empathy-mage in a simple battle stance, ready to take action on the behemoth man if he tried any funny business. A bit more confident in herself, Echo continued to speak, "Will you answer our questions willingly? Or is that not possible?"

"_DEPENDS ON THE QUESTION HUMAN... WHAT DO YOU WISH TO KNOW?"_

"Why are you attacking Xiram?" the blonde questioned the giant with a light scowl, "I do not believe giants have any reason to be raiding their food-"

"_YOU WOULD BE WRONG, GIRL" _the behemoth man cut her off before Echo could finish her sentence, _"I DOUBT THAT YOU WOULD BELIEVE ME IF I WERE TO TELL YOU," _at the end of that the giant let out a few hoarse laughs, almost as if he couldn't believe how ridiculous this situation was.

"... erm, I'm all ears," Echo spoke in a soft tone, suddenly noticing a change in his mood... it seemed as if he would be taking this interrogation seriously after all, and if possible Echo wanted to find a way to solve all this.

The large giant grinned, "_YOU ARE WAY TOO SOFT FOR A WARRIOR, GIRL," _the behemoth man commented with a snicker before letting out a sigh, "_FINE... I WILL TELL YOU THE REASON WHY WE ARE RAIDING THIS TOWN OF FOOD,"_

Nobody dared speak as the giant began to tell his tale, _"IT'S BEEN SIX HUMAN MONTHS SINCE... IT APPEARED. WE DO NOT HAVE ANY IDEA WHY, BUT THIS MONSTER ASKED US FOR ALL OUR FOOD SUPPLY; WE LAUGHED IN IT'S FACE AT FIRST, BUT THAT DIDN'T LAST LONG AS THE BEST QUICKLY KILLED 6 OF OUR OWN IN A MATTER OF MOMENTS. WE DIDN'T KNOW WHAT THIS THING WAS, BUT IT ONLY TOOK A COUPLE OF DAYS AFTER WE COMPLIED WITH HIS ORDERS TO KNOW THAT IT POSSED AN UNTAMABLE HUNGER. OUR VILLAGE BEGAN TO RUN OUT OF FOOD, IN FACT I CAN'T EVEN TELL YOU HOW LONG SINCE I'VE LAST ATE... IN ORDER TO SURVIVE, WE BEGAN STEALING FOOD FROM NEARBY HUMAN VILLAGES, SUCH AS THIS ONE, TO KEEP THE MONSTER FED AND OUR FAMILIES SAFE"_

"So this isn't the only town that's been attacked?!" Aestus asked through gritted teeth, if it wasn't for Echo right in front of him he would have probably attacked the giant by now.

"_NO IT IS NOT... WE ALWAYS TRY TO LEAVE THE TOWN AND THE HUMANS UNHARM, BUT THERE ARE ALWAYS... A FEW WHO SEE HUMANS AS NOTHING BUT RATS THAT NEED TO BE ELIMINATED, LUCKILY FOR YOU I AM NOT ONE OF THEM. WE KNOW WHAT WE ARE DOING IS WRONG, BUT WE ARE LEFT WITH NO CHOICE..."_

Julianna was still meh about his whole explanation, though just from looking at Echo's expression it was easy to tell she believed him, and if she believed in this guy then that was enough for Julianna, "Then the answer seems simple right? All we got to do is kick this thing's ass, and all problems solved!" the take-over used cheered, with Aestus nodding in agreement right beside her.

Echo seemed to think about something, as she didn't speak for couple more moments, before clearing up her throat and frowning lightly, "As mages of Victory Tree, we will take care of this threat towards you giants and the human towns nearby, so could you tell us where to find this monster?" the small blonde asked the behemoth man in a stern voice.

"_...HEH, DO YOU HAVE A DEATH WISH, GIRL?"_

Echo shook her head, "No, all three of us came here to solve the problem... I have no intentions of dying, since my mistress told me to come back safely," the empathy-mage spoke with a confident tone, with her two teammates agreeing with her.

"_VERY WELL... I WILL TELL YOU WHERE TO FIND THIS MONSTER, BUT BEFORE I DO I THINK YOU SHOULD KNOW THE NAME THIS BEAST IS GOING BY..."_

"What is it?" Julianna questioned with curiosity in her voice, the sleepiness she had felt before slowly fading away.

?

"So, you call yourself the Bug Emperor now?" a sweet, young-sounding girly voice suddenly filled the monster's ears.

It had thought to have finally found the perfect hideout, but it seemed as no matter how well the freak hid himself _she_ would always find him. The location was a very spacious looking cavern that had a stone-crafted throne right in the middle; a lone figure was sitting on the large stone throne, it had been sleeping for a while now but upon hearing the oh-so familiar voice the monster had woken up, his large black-void looking eyes staring at the young woman entering his hideout.

The monster held an appearance more to that of a bug with a humanoid look, mostly due to the head which had two thin antennas laying lazily at the top and the two, large fangs that concealed it's small mouth. The rest of its body was covered by thick, reddish-brown hide; at the tip of its hands were two large pincers while its feet looked bulky with clearly visible vines.

It certainly held a bizarre look; exactly what had been in mind of its creator.

The one that had called out to the beast was a young, small woman around her early twenties; her pink curly hair up in a high pony tail that was held together by a small, indigo colored ribbon. The woman's skin tone was a beautiful looking shade of vanilla, with most of it hidden away by the knee-length, midnight black dress she had on. As the pink-haired woman got closer to the freak, her small black boots would step on some random bones the monster had left on the floor, crushing them with ease.

Clasping her white-gloved hands together, the small woman grinned viciouslyat the bug as her ocean-blue orbs analyzed the beast right in front of her, "My my! I'd never imagine you would survive for so long! I applaud you, Bug Emperor," the pink-haired woman commented with a snicker.

"What do you want, J-"

"NUHUHUH! Call me what everyone else calls me,"

"... what do you wish from me, Gluttony?"

Gluttony giggled lightly, "See! Wasn't that hard right? And I'm impressed! You learned to speak our language again!" the young woman questioned the freak; "I know we dated before I turned you to this, but that was like ages ago!" the pink-haired reminded the monster with a small smile.

Upon hearing that Bug Emperor seemed confused, and Gluttony seemed to remember something, "OOPS! I erased, most of your memories right? Yeah, I started doing that with you..." the young woman placed a gloved finger on her chin, seemingly thinking about something.

"BUT ANYWAYS ENOUGH OF ME! Let's talk about you," Gluttony proclaimed-childishly, "I just came to warn you to take it easy with the eating... or the magic council will notice," the pink-haired woman informed Bug Emperor, who continued to stare at her "It's not like I really care about you anymore though... I have moved onto bigger, stronger subjects," Gluttony added in with a devilish smirk.

"Leave me be then... I will do as I wish and become the ruler of this world,"

Gluttony silently eyed the monster in front of her for a few moments, but finally she couldn't help herself and the pink-haired woman ended up bursting out laughing, "R-really?" the young woman asked through slightly teary eyes, "First you call yourself Bug Emperor, and now you want to rule the world?! SERIOUSLY?! GET REAL YOU FREAK!" at the end of that she continued to laugh her ass off, not as intimidated as one would be in front of a monster such as this one.

"I could kill you right now..."

"Do it if you wish," Gluttony shrugged off the threat casually, "I'm just a clone, so i'll probably end up becoming food for some other monster back at the factory if you don't kill me already," the young woman spoke with a small smile.

"I will kill the original you then..."

"HA! Don't kid yourself! You're just some failed, on the run lab experiment that's got a God-complexity over fucking bugs! Why? Because they all listen to you!" the clone walked up to the monster and grinned viciously at Bug Emperor, "It's not even out of respect like true subjects! But because their brains are so small, they listen to an idiot like you!" Gluttony began to cackle loudly, enjoying tormenting this one.

"But do not worry, this is not the only reason I've come here... much like the others sent before me, I came to propose you come back to Monster Factory," Gluttony spoke in a much softer, nicer tone... almost like a completely different person, "While you've disrespected me by fleeing, I consider you my child nonetheless... since I created you, Bug Emperor. So much like a true mother, why not stop this whole stupid idea of yours and come back ho-"

Gluttony didn't have a chance to finish her sentence because Bug Emperor quickly kicked the clone towards a nearby wall like a ragged doll, leaped towards her, and used one of it's large pincers to cut the clone in half. Blood sprayed all over the monster, but it didn't seem affected by it as the freak simply walked back towards it's throne and sat down, leaving of what remained of Gluttony's clone on the ground.

It had tasted one of those clones before, and he didn't like the taste... usually he would go hunt for a few humans by now, but apart from awaiting for those giants that would bring him food for his... own children... after having a taste of a rare delicacy recently simple humans just couldn't do it anymore. The self-proclaimed bug emperor could feel itself drooling from it's mouth, that last human it had killed tasted much more tastier then all the other ones the freak had hunted;

If Bug Emperor remembered correctly, that human had been... a mage, right? Yes, a mage...

"... I hope more mages come soon,"

**IT'S TIME FOR... CHIBI TIME! TODAY WE HAVE MORDRED AND RILEY, WHO WILL EXPLAIN A BIT ABOUT SOME RANKS.**

Mordred: Hi everyone! It's me, Mordred with my loyal waiter... Riley!

Riley: Hey there audience! Welcome to-

Mordred: WELCOME TO CHIBI TIME! Today's topic: Ranking. Riley, get the chalkboard.

Riley: ...Okay *Disappears for a moment before returning with a chalkboard.

Mordred: *grabs a chalk out of thing air and begins writing* In the world of today the Magic Council has set up a rank system for pretty much anything, such as guilds and threats to the peace.

Riley: We're starting with the guilds right?

Mordred: Yeah.

Riley: Okay.

Mordred: *begins to write furiously* concerning guilds, every guild in the kingdom of Fiore has a number rank given to them; there are about 1203 officially established mage guilds at the moment, let's say you created a guild... since the guild is brand new it's rank would be 1204!

Riley: Say, mistress, what's the rank of our guild?

Mordred: *begins laughing* Oh Riley... die.

Riley: ...Um, what?

Mordred: Moving on! Jobs completed successfully by said guild, member count, each member's power, and of course the number of times they've won the Grand Magic Games! These are a few factors that decided your guild's rank, with that last one being the most important.

Riley: Don't forget mistress! It's not always about the quantity, but the quality too! 1000 A-class jobs are worth 100 S-Class jobs, and that many S-class jobs equal 10 Decade-class jobs!

Mordred: Of course my dear servant! Now... i think that's the end of that. Moving onto Danger Ranks!

Riley: *flips the chalkboard over and begins writing furiously* Danger Ranks, as the name might have implied already, are ranks given to enemies such as non-human creatures, dark guilds, and independent criminals.

Mordred: This is pretty simple. Danger ranks are set 1-10, with a Danger Rank of 1 given to a lowly thief, 4 is the average rank of giants as an example, and a rank of 5 and 6 given to threats that should be handled by a very strong A-class mage or more preferably an S-class.

Riley: Anything above 6 needs to be reported to the Magic Council. But unless it's a danger rank of 9 or 10 feel free to haul in the reward.

Mordred: A danger rank of 9 is given to any threats that have enough strength to go against any of the top 10 strongest guilds while a danger rank of 10 means that they are on par or stronger then the Wizard Saints.

Riley: I think that pretty much covers it... mage ranks?

Mordred *rolls her eyes* everyone already knows! C-class, B-class, A-class, S-class, SS-class, SSS-class, and of course X-class! For guilds only there are two other ranks... Guild Master and staff!

Riley: Yeah.

Mordred: Staff like you!

Riley: Okay, thanks mistress.

Mordred: You're welcome!

Riley: Anyways i think that covers it... thanks everyone! This was-

Mordred: THIS WAS CHIBI TIME WITH MORDRED AND RILEY! Look forward to next time! My dear, sweet Echo and Julianna will be chibi!

**Author's Note: Alright, just going to get this out of the way first; no, I'm not going to completely skip the fight between Team Chaos and Spider Monkey. I felt as if this chapter was already getting too long, so I saved the fight till the next one... plus it would have taking me even longer to release this one, as I have trouble with fight scenes.**

**Anyways thanks for reading this chapter! I tried to actually get the plot going, so I didn't get to introduce any other OC other than Emiki Saitama and Christmas Yanor... which I'm hoping I did a good job at portraying them, since I really like Emiki and I especially enjoyed writing out Christmas for some reason. I had Emiki in my previous version of Victory Tree and I really wanted her in this one... can't wait till you all find out more about her :P**

**Apologies for the 4 day delay; I hope the extra length can make up for it! I honestly have no idea if the next few chapters will be as long as this one, as I wanted to fit some more scenes in here because the fight took up a lot of words (which I probably did a bad job in describing, i'm not that good with fight scenes). I edited this chapter a lot, like I had this other scene where... you know what never mind. **

**Btw I was going to upload it yesterday, but I couldn't get connected to the internet.**

**Am I dragging scenes too long? Idk, I feel like I could just use one word instead of like three or four; in fact I used to write much shorter chapters (which was loooooooong ago in another story) and people always told me to back off on the high level words, so I've been doing that.**

**Chibi Time, which has characters in chibi forms, is a thing I wanted to try out. This one took me like two minutes to write, and it's mainly so you know a bit more of the personal touches I've done to the universe Victory Tree is taking place in. To be honest i'm feeling meh on the Danger Ranks... so they might not be mentioned at all when I make up my mind about them. I'm not sure if it will be in every chapter from now on, but I will include Chibi Time in the next following chapters; of course if you don't like the idea I'll just scrap it.**

**Again, if you want to know what's my progress on the latest Victory Tree chapter just go to my profile. I have a little section where I put how much I've progressed with it. It's got a few more announcements too, like SYOC projects I'll be posting soon or later in the future.**

**As always I appreciate any reviews! I welcome all helpful feedback, wherever it's just telling me you enjoyed this one scene, some good old fashioned CnC, or both! Reviews get me more pumped up to write, so yeah...**

**Until next time!**


	6. Emerald

Spider Monkey Guild

Chaos couldn't hear a single thing from his teammates nor was he making the slightest attempt on doing so. Kicking away another bandit with a swift kick to the gut, Chaos quickly jumped onto a nearby table and effortlessly dodged the greenhorn-skilled slashes from the bandits before landing a couple more kicks on the face. The mossy-haired male took out both hands from his pockets to grab a thief trying to jump at him from the neck, which he then seemingly attempted to choke out before throwing the bandit towards a trio who were charging at him. The weight of their fellow bandit made them fall onto the floor with a light yelp.

It had been a while since Chaos had been able to fight someone so casually like this, but it's been nearly fifteen minutes of beating around these guys and as enjoyable human-punching bag they made... Chaos could not find any more enjoyment in this. These guys were way too weak and honestly, the pale-skinned mage began to question if this really was an S-class job.

Chaos moved slightly back when a bandit tried to stab him from the side; the thief had put too much force into the attack, so he went right pass him and using the chance Chaos grabbed the bandit by the back of his shirt, pulled him into mid-air, and threw the bandit towards a nearby wall with all his might.

Dark purple eyes glanced at all the chaos around him (pun intended), lazily looking at all the bandits that had decided that fighting him was too much and instead decided to go for the two women: Aria and Iris, who were proven to be as much as a threat as himself. Deciding that too many bandits were grouping around the two mages, Chaos calmly walked towards the increasing mob near the doors...

Not even bothering to turn around, Chaos formed a small barrier of bright transparent-looking energy around himself as a blast of fire consumed him... or the barrier to be more exact. Once the flames started to weaken Chaos undid the barrier and muttered some words under his breathe, a white magic circle formed below him, and he slashed away the rest of the fire with a simple sword made of the same energy.

Before he had any time to see where the attack had come from Chaos leaped away onto another table as a current of water fired towards him from the side, but just as he landed on the table yet another blast of fire erupted from an almost random direction. Having no time to react Chaos was consumed in the flames without any sort of barrier to protect him.

Iris widened her eyes when she managed to catch the sight of Chaos being consumed in flames, but her attention was brought back to the front as one of the bandits brought down his dagger and attempted to impale her. This attack was simply stopped by a small shield, which seemed to be made of some strange energy before Aria landed a punch on the bandit.

"Aria! Chaos is in trouble," the pink-haired girl informed her friend, who seemed too busy with kicking back the bandits surrounding them to pay her much attention, "We need to help him!" light blue eyes kept staring at Aria who after a couple more moments, finally turn to look at her.

"But he's suppose' to be the S-class!" Aria argued, not paying attention the bandits closing in on them, "He was acting all cocky earlier, so let him take are of this," the red head calmly stated, crossing her arms over her chest.

"Aria!"

The redhead in question let out a tired sigh, "Fine! Just let me equip one of my armors then!" Aria pointed out in an annoyed tone, for a moment wondering why didn't she hadn't done that to begin with.

Aria was consumed in a momentary-light which managed to blind the thieves all around them for a couple of seconds. Once they could see clearly again the bandits didn't even have time to notice the thick, ridiculously long broadsword heading towards them. Not a real fan of gore, Aria simply used the side of the sword to throw most of the bandits towards a couple tables nearby before she and Iris evaded all the other ones and headed straight for Chaos.

Aria had on a black-steel armor with all sorts of spikes sticking out of it; it had some red marking here and there, but it was mostly black. Demon Lady Armor hugged her figure, so despite being clad from neck-to-toe her slight curves were still noticeable... not that it mattered anyway. Aria had to admit thought, despite looking pretty light this requip was pretty heavy... right now she was giving it her all at running but Aria was still a couple steps behind her pink-haired friend.

Luckily for Aria the two halted their steps when they saw Chaos, standing as proud as he usually was on the spot. The table was scattered all over him in pieces, some small flames quickly burning away the leftover wood as the mossy-haired male turned to look at the spot where the attack had come from.

Chaos crafted another energy sword before throwing it towards the bandit hidden on the upper floor, who noticed the attack and dodged. Figuring he was distracted, the other hidden bandit quickly used his magic to send a powerful current of water to Chaos... his back all wide opened. Not even bothering to turn around, a white magic circle appeared right behind Chaos. As the torrent of water got closer the circle began to emit energy sparks all over and much to the bandit's displeasure, a large orb of the same transparent-energy quickly fired towards the water spell.

The energy-orb ripped through the blast of water and once it reached the thief, it broke the whole floor below him causing the bandit to fall onto a table below with a loud yell.

Iris and Aria only stared in awe for a couple seconds as Chaos scurried to the stairs nearby and easily ran through the 15 steps before meeting with the bandit that had tried to burn him. Too close to use any of his fire attacks, Chaos simply summoned another energy-sword before slashing the fire user's chest.

Aria quickly realized the other bandits closing in, so the redhead proceeded swing her broadsword and repeating her previous action; a couple bandits were sent flying but most of them had already seen through her plan and had simply jumped over or below the blade. Aria was momentarily surprised at the small feet, but Iris managed to see her dilemma and supported her friend by firing off a small blast of odd-looking energy towards the incoming foes.

Using this chance Aria once again brought up her sword before swinging her weapon towards the remaining bunch; much like earlier, she used the side of the blade so that it didn't slice them, but just threw them to the side... wouldn't they just get up? Well, that's what Aria first thought when she first tried it on some other opponents but... Demon Lady seemed to give her quite a boost in strength, so being hit by the side of the blade was like taking a hit from a boulder.

Both of the friend's attention was brought back to Chaos fighting the fire-user; well, it was more of their teammate just beating down the poor guy. Chaos continued to slash the foe on his chest over and over again with the energy sword; it was obvious that man couldn't fight anymore but Chaos either didn't notice or care. Both friends quickly took note of this, so the two mages ran up the nearby stairs in attempts to stop Chaos from doing something he might regret...

"Grumpypants! That's enough, "Aria barked at her mossy-haired teammate, who simply ignored her and continued to slash the bandit without a care in the world. Gripping her sword tighter, Aria gritted her teeth at the scene, "Come on man! Stop it... he can't fight anymore!"

"...Chaos?" Iris slowly approached him, though Aria stood back, "Chaos please-"

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?!" Chaos turned around furiously to look at Iris with dead-cold eyes, the energy-sword held forward and inches away from her neck.

Iris froze in spot, unsure on what to take on what was happening while Aria didn't hesitate to charge with her broadsword in hand... though with each step the redhead took, and it seemed as if he weapon shrank till she was right in front of Chaos.

"WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM CHAOS?!" Aria glared furiously at her teammate, her broadsword already back to its original length so that she could swing it freely from such a close distance without problems... for her anyways, "I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU DO ANYTHING TO IRIS...!"

Chaos stood there for a few moments, though he didn't move an inch it was clear that his rage was slowly dropping. The mossy-haired male seemed to be thinking about something while eyeing Aria and Iris, but much to Iris displeasure he didn't seem in a hurry to pull the energy-sword away from her neck. Finally after what seemed like an eternity Chaos shook his head; the energy-made weapon quickly vanishing from his hands as he turned to look at the bandit he had been beating down... or slashing in this case.

A deep breathe escaped Iris' lips which she had unconsciously been holding in. While it seemed as if the pink-haired mage was free of worries concerning the situation Aria wouldn't let it go that easily, so the redhead continued to eye the older mage with caution evident in her eyes... Aria friend might easily forgive Chaos for that just now, but it would take a while before Chaos won the little trust she held towards him again.

"...Sorry," Chaos spoke in his usual deadpanned tone, "But I'm just going to say this once, don't bother me while i'm fighting a dark mage _ever_ again... you might not be as lucky next time," the mossy-haired male warned the two friends, who simply eyed Chaos before the mage turned around and walked past the two;

"I'm going to find the head," Chaos stated flatly before tucking his hands inside his pockets "You can either patch-up this guy or let him die of blood loss, I don't really care," those were the last words the mossy-haired male told his two teammates as he began walking down onto the first floor, already seeing no sign of a possible hiding place up here

Both friends continued to eye the S-class mage, though it was Aria who quickly broke the silence and got a hold of Iris, "IRIS! You okay...?" the red head asked her friend in a worried tone, already prepared to charge at that bastard if he caused even the slightest scratch on Iris.

The pink haired in question nodded slightly, "Don't worry Aria, I'm sure Chaos would never actually hurt me," Iris spoke with a light smile, placing a hand on the redhead's shoulder to reassure her.

"Oh thank god..." Aria closed her eyes for a moment before turning to look at the bandit Chaos had been fighting, "So what do we do with this guy?" The red head asked with a much more relaxed tone, obviously glad that her best friend was fine.

Iris placed a finger on her chin, "I think we should patch-him up, it would be bad if Chaos turned into a murderer... "

Aria found it unbelievable that even after what had just happened, her friend was still thinking on that asshole. But for once the redhead didn't show her displeasure and simply nodded before getting on her knees along with Iris. The two friends quickly began to rip large pieces off the bandit's shirt to cover the wounds as they noted that luckily for them the slashes weren't deep enough, so he wouldn't die of blood loss as the two originally feared.

Meanwhile murderous-filled eyes studied the two friends from afar; neither having an idea of the encounter they would be having shortly.

Xiram Village

Christmas silently awaited in the living room of the small house he had arrived in a few hours ago. A lot of people in Xiram came to this place whenever they felt sick or were injured because the owner of this house was a mage who specialized in healing magic. Of course his abilities weren't just in magic, the man was also rumored to have been a medic in some Rune Knight squadron and was a fully trained doctor... why even bother when you have healing magic? Well, Christmas wasn't sure. But if he had to guess it was that sometimes magic wasn't needed or available, so one needed to go the old fashion way sometimes and not use magic.

The crimson-eyed male continued to stare at the corridor a few feet away; Christmas sitting down on a simple, plain wooden chair that was right besides some other chairs all lined up against the wall. There was a black coffee table in front of him full of magazines and such, though Christmas was drawn more towards the paintings placed on the walls... no it wasn't because of how freaky or colorful they looked, but because they were all placed perfectly on the wall.

Christmas shook his head. The shaggy-hair mage was nervous, much to his displeasure Christmas couldn't get his heart beat to calm down and if he were to compare himself from when he fought the giants and now, Christmas was a lot calmer fighting those big dudes. After separating from those guild mages Christmas finally got to his dad's house and at first he was glad to see his old home unharmed, though Christmas began to worry when he spotted no sign of his old man. Luckily for him it didn't take long before one of his old neighbors, Miss Raiyne, recognized him and asked if he was looking for his dad; after confirming her suspicion, the older woman told Christmas that Jennaro had left about a week ago... but suddenly came back to town all beat up about a day ago and was taken to Drake to be checked up.

Drake Rak would be the healing-mage running this small hospital. After finding his house Drake greeted him in a pretty friendly way and it wasn't till Drake left to check-up on his dad that Christmas was reminded that his old man once told him that if trouble ever aroused due to being found out on their magic, Christmas was to go to Drake's house immediately. Jennaro, his dad, was always the type that greeted everyone in town but never really got too close with any of his neighbors due to caution... so Christmas was sort of surprised that his old man had any friends.

All of the sudden Christmas was pulled out of his thoughts when he heard some footsteps coming from the hallway. Turning his attention away from the perfectly-placed paintings, Christmas quickly stood up and walked towards the entrance of the corridor where Drake appeared soon enough.

Despite being around his father's age Christmas couldn't help but feel slightly impressed with how built Drake was. The crimson-eyed male looked up to face the medic, who easily went pass 6'0" and looked as if he could easily lift this whole house if he wanted to... alright, he was probably overreacting but the man was still pretty buff.

"Come, you can see him..." Drake started out with a small, friendly smile at first but after he trailed off... it seemed as if the man grew a lot more serious, "But he won't wake up for a few more hours," the heavily-tanned male quickly added in before walking down the small corridor, with Christmas trailing behind a few steps as he simply let himself be guided to the room.

Drake stopped at a door at the end of the hall before taking ahold of the knob and pushing it open with a light creak, because of his size the man had to crouch down a bit to enter the room while Christmas quickly scurried in as soon as he had the chance.

A mixed of emotions flooded his mind upon seeing his dad on the small bed, seemingly asleep. For one he felt a bit freaked out just seeing him there all motionless, though Christmas started to grow a bit calmer upon noticing the light rising of his father's chest with every breathe he took. But on another hand Christmas began to question something... from his point of view, his old man seemed fine. Yet if that were true, there would be no reason for him to still be here.

"What's wrong with him?" Christmas asked bluntly, though his crimson eyes glinted with slight fear.

Drake was momentarily surprised from his question, though quickly placed a firm hand on the younger male's shoulders before he began speaking, "... I have no idea why or how, but your father attempted to resolve the problem between our town and the giants that have been raiding it," emerald orbs looked down at the younger Yanor, who quietly listened to his story," I offered myself to come along, but he refused; the giants might attack and without me here, there would be no one to treat everyone else. Anyways that was a couple days ago, but out of nowhere some people found him at the entrance of town all beaten up and on the ground. I treated him as soon as I could and after a whole day of healing it seemed as if he was fine..."

"But?" Christmas question in a hoarse voice, he could feel his heart-beat speeding up, his lips and throat had dried as he awaited the doctor to finish his report.

A tired sigh escaped the older male's lips, "His legs had been in a critical condition when he was brought in, and while I could fix up all his other injuries... I'm afraid Jennaro's legs were completely crushed beyond repair and-"

Christmas got a hold of the older male's robe, Drake was momentarily taken aback by Jennaro's son glaring up at him with a raging fury in his eyes, "DON'T GIVE ME THAT! YOU'RE AN EXPERT IN HEALING MAGIC RIGHT?! All you have to do is heal his legs... and-"

"It's not as simple as that," Drake quickly cut him off, " It is true that healing magic has grown to a point one can achieve miracles that no ordinary doctor can, but I'm not god Christmas," the tanned-male informed Christmas, who's whole body was trembling from all those mix emotions coursing through him;

"The human body is like a machine, or those lacrima-items you see everywhere if you want a simpler view. If it gets damaged there's nothing to worry about _as long as there is still something left to fix_. Most healing magic simply reconnects the injury back together, but in this case your father's legs were crushed to a point that it's just impossible for any mage I know to successfully 'heal' his legs-"

"Stop... please..."

Drake watched Christmas with a solemn look as the younger male took off his hold from his robe and simply walked towards his sleeping father. Afterwards the crimson-eyed male pulled a small chair that had been in the corner room and right beside the bed before taking a seat, not interested in hearing any more of what Drake had to say.

"Christmas, as of right now your father might not be able to walk. But that doesn't mean to just give up," Drake quickly added in, folding his arms over his chest, "I may not be able to do much, but there are plenty of mages who are far more skilled then I in healing magic. If you look hard enough, you might find one who could restore your father's legs back to normal... but that would mean build all the bones in your father's legs from nothing,"

Christmas didn't answer.

Figuring that he might want to be alone, Drake decided that it was probably his time to leave, but he figured he could voice out another option, "But there's also the option of artificial legs made of lacrima, though from what I hear... those are real expensive right now,"

Yet again getting no response, Drake silently left the room and as he closed the door behind him the older male couldn't help feeling useless. Even after traveling so long and learning more about healing magic, it seemed as if he finally reached his limit as a mage.

Victory Tree Guild

"Night Emiki! Oh, you too Riley" the young mistress waved off the two workers before entering her office, something about having a lot of paperwork to fill out for her newest members... Riley wasn't sure, he was way into his pancakes to listen to whatever Mor was saying.

After a while of just chatting and enjoying the pancakes Riley made everyone just kind of left; Perri and Melody left together while Yu, due to having no place to stay, got Mor to let him borrow a room for the night. Yu had been the first one to leave after taking a hard, close look at all the jobs there were available to take... even though he took a pretty long nap earlier that day.

In the end it was only Riley and Emiki left; the onyx-eyed waiter cleaned the dishes while the newest addition to staff simply watched him, though didn't seem to have the slightest intention of helping out... not that he needed it anyways. After a while Riley started to grow a bit uncomfortable, so he tasked Emiki with drying the dishes before going with Mor and asking her if there was anything more she could; Mor told him no, and that they were both free to go to bed.

Riley casually strolled down the small, yet oddly long hallway while his blonde co-worker trailed a few steps behind him... seemingly having no idea where to go or to be more precise, which of the room's to go in. Before this Riley had turned off all the lights in the guild so the only thing illuminating the corridor was a small light-lacrima floating besides him, which he had bought after finding out that Mor hadn't installed any source of light to brighten the hallway after it turned dark.

Stopping at his room, Riley pointed the door on his left, "I'm guessing that's your room... since the other room next to mine is the broom closet," the onyx-eyed waiter spoke with a light grin, "Anyways good n-"

Emiki scurried towards her room, opened the door and went inside before closing the door behind her; giving Riley no chance to finish his sentence.

"Fine... whatever," Riley rubbed the back of his head before opening the door to his own room and entering. Today hadn't been too tiring, but considering he had woken up in some alley this morning Riley just wanted to get to his bed. After closing the door Riley flipped the switch that was besides the door, which turned on the light that had been placed on the ceiling, before flopping down on his bed with a tired sigh.

"Good to be back,"

'_This bed is uncomfortable; the mattress is too hard and the sheets smell funny. I don't have a third complaint but I cannot stress enough about the sheets! Seriously you should, like, wash them!'_

"I'll get to that," Riley replied casually, for once agreeing with something that voice inside his head told him to do, "But right now I just want to relax,"

_'Remember, if you just went back ho-'_

"I don't have a home apart from this one," the onyx-eyed waiter defended with a light scowl, it's not as if he was really fond of this guild or anything... but living in that place with his sister wasn't something he could call a home anymore. It had been years since he last referred to it as that, now the best word ot describe that place was a prison. A cozy prison, but a prison nonetheless, "So let me make this very clear; I'm not going back with Alluka,"

_'WHATEVER! If you just want to rot in this guild as a waiter, suit yourself!'_

Riley rolled his eyes, slowly and carefully undoing his tie as a yawn escaped his lips," Don't you ever have anything positive to say, imaginary Mor?" The onyx-eyed male asked with a light smirk, not at all bothered by her comment.

A gasp echoed through his mind, '_HOW. DARE. YOU! I am not that annoying-ass brat!'_

"...What are you, then?" Riley asked with slight hesitation. Despite having no doubt that the voice inside his head was just a fragment of his imagination the waiter awaited the answer with curiosity, though it didn't help that the voice wasn't speaking up right away like it usually did... a couple more moments passed and the waiter rolled his eyes.

Deciding that right now the best option was to sleep, Riley brought up the upper part of his body in attempts to untie his dress shoes. They felt extremely uncomfortable as they were a size too small and honestly, Riley had been a tad impressed with himself when he managed to put them on so-

Riley's onyx-orbs quickly locked with another set of eyes; large, wide emeralds gazed at the waiter right into his eyes while the bearer, a gold-blonde haired girl that looked about 10, simply floated there. Her attire consisted of a simple black gothic-style dress, which concealed everything from the neck-down.

"Tsk, well what eves! I guess it's, like, time I introduced myself to your pathetic ass," the girl spoke in a sassy tone, a smirk forming on her lips while she crossed her arms over her flat chest,"I have been given the name Lucia. I am not allowed to tell you how I came into service, or what am I exactly, but all you need to know is that I am tasked to help the weakest member of the family, you in this case, to learn magic,"

Lucia didn't even bother to look at Riley, who had crawled back to the nearest wall, as she simply floated aimlessly in the small room, "Of course I will only advice you and give you a few pushes here and there, you'll do all of the heavy lifting. Until you've mastered your magic I am also tasked with protecting you; nobody else can see me, or harm me, and in this form I feed off your magic reserve. Our contract will be terminated once you learn magic," the floating 10-year old continued to explain in a robotic-like voice, almost as if she had done this numerous times already;

"As for what am I... well, you can call me, like, your spirit guardian something!" Lucia boasted with a devious smirk, "But like, don't always rely on me, okidokie? I can only protect you as long as you got energy left, so, like, can you just get strong already?" the spirit turned to look at her newest master, though once she caught sight of the state Riley was in... Lucia realized what he was about to do.

Deciding that would be bad on her part, Lucia quickly flew towards the onyx-eyed waiter in attempts to shut his trap... though it was too late.

Emiki jumped slightly from a sudden shrilled scream, though apart from that the blonde remained as calm as ever as azure-eyes glanced towards the direction the scream had come from. Of course with the obvious wall between them the stoic-female could only guess what was going on inside that man's room, though after a while Emiki decided she didn't care and simply proceeded to slid off her jacket.

Just as she was about to take off her sneakers Emiki's gaze was attracted to a nearby mirror hanging by the wall. The room was small so despite only having a bed and a wardrobe as furniture it still looked a bit cramped... which Emiki didn't really mind anyways.

Azure-orbs continued to stare at the mirror, not a hint of emotion flowed through them as Emiki analyzed her body. The blonde's expression didn't change as she walked closer to the mirror until she was right in front of it, though her thoughts changed to something else... mostly concerning today, like how she finally found a place to stay for a while and what she would do from now on with this new job.

That was obvious. Like always she would continue to hide and hope that one day the one hunting her down would tire and move on with life. Perhaps then Emiki would find the long-desired peace she had been dreaming of and be able to enjoy... whatever this was. Without another thought the blonde took of her shoes and quietly walked towards her bed; hoping that tomorrow would end as quietly and as quickly like today.

Yu slightly rolled on the small bed, which was a lot more comfortable then he had originally thought. Thanks to this the blonde was easily able to fall into a deep sleep so that even Riley's girl-scream didn't wake him up. Today had been a pretty tough day for Yu; for one, he got outsmarted by some brat in a gamble he could have easily won, cheating or not. Adding to that Yu was now forced to listen to every single command given to him by said brat otherwise instant death! Why? Well, thanks to this dreaded mark!

And no, he wasn't talking about the Victory Tree guild mark. Despite that being several times more worse than the Mark of Hades.

To top it all off he was now part of this loser-guild and as of right now, had no way of getting rid of the Mark of Hades. Yet despite all his problems, right now... that didn't matter. None of that mattered, the bet he had done with Mor, the Mark of Hades, the instant death that would befall him if he didn't listen to her orders, or this newbie guild. None.

A slight snore escaped Yu as the blonde began to mumble in his sleep, "...Shut up Haru... there's no way you can prove I cheated..."

**NOW IT'S TIME FOR CHIBIS**

**Echo: *bows lightly* Hello dear readers, me and Julianna will be explaining a bit about guilds.**

**Julianna: *grins* HELLO EVERYONE! IT'S CHIBI TIME WITH ME AND ECHO! Today we'll talk about guilds and jobs!**

**Echo: Eh, Julianna i already explained that...**

**Julianna: *nods* I know, but i just wanted to make sure they got it! **

**Echo: Oh, okay. So would you mind getting the chalk board, Julianna?**

**Julianna: *nods before running off***

**Echo: *pulls a chalk out of nowhere as Julianna returns with the chalkboard* Today, as previous mentioned, we will explain how your local guild works. First are the members of the said guild; each mage that part of the guild must have paperwork properly written out by both master and the mage in question. The usual form simply includes the following: name, age, gender, birthdate, magic, rank, hometown, home country, and such. A master could choose not fill out the paperwork for the mage, but while the mage would have the guild mark they won't be officially acknowledge by the Magic Council as part of the guild.**

**Julianna: *continues writing were Echo left off* Anywho! You might be wondering why this would be important, right? Apart from having your guild disbanded if you haven't filled out any paperwork for your mages, this also let's the Magic Council know how many jobs to distribute to your guild and of what rank. If you have enough members, this also includes the possibility that the Magic Council might increase your guild rank... even if it's just by one.**

**Come to think of it, mistress hasn't told us the rank of our guild, has she Echo?**

**Echo: *seems to think about it a bit before nodding* that's true. Now i can't help but wonder what our rank as a guild is...**

**Julianna: ANYWAYS! Usually, the more members you have the more jobs the Magic Council gives your guild. Depending on their rank as a mage, it also gives you access to higher class jobs which give you even more possibilities of increasing your guild rank!**

**Echo: Of course, not all jobs are given by the Magic Council... any citizen of the city or town the guild is established in can post a job up on the board, for a mage to take. Of course most of these jobs are considered as D-class... since they usually consist of trivial tasks anyone can do; babysitting, house sitting, or even cooking up a meal! Because of this, D-class jobs are not counted in the guild's official job count, but for newbie guilds it's a great way to get to know your community!**

**Julianna: We used to do a lot of those... man, were they boring.**

**Echo: Well... they were pretty slow compared to the job we're doing now.**

**Julianna: I remember this one time my contractor told me to go buy some groceries... but i lost my way there and ended up wasting the whole day trying to find the supermarket. After that i never returned to that house... so all that grunt work was for nothing.**

**Echo: That sounds embarrassing.**

**Julianna: It was...**

**Echo: Don't worry Julianna! That's long in the past now.**

**Julianna: I know...**

**Echo: *clears up her throat* Well, would you mind doing the...?**

**Julianna: OH! The next part, sure. Uh, because anyone can post a job on your board everyone should be wary of those jobs that surpass B-class and don't have the official Magic Council stamp on them! Usually other towns nearby will try to get assistance from your guild because they don't have one of their own back home, but some dark guilds who specialize in mage killing are known to post well-paid looking jobs that seem easy to do. The mages that go on this type of job usually end up being ambushed in the middle of nowhere and killed...**

**Echo: It is the responsibility of everyone in the guild to keep the board clean of such jobs! Be sure to do this to prevent such a tragedy from happening!**

**Julianna: I think that's all for today... is that all?**

**Echo: *nods* Yeah, that's all. Thank you all so much for tuning in this time! Look forward to next Chibi Time; Aria, Iris, and Chaos will be chibi and shall explain a bit about magic!**

**Julianna: *grins* Oh that's going to be good.**

Author's Note: This chapter was originally much longer and had two extra fight scenes (one was Aria and Iris versus the one that was spying on them, and the other fight involved Chaos) but about a week ago the chapter got deleted -.- ALL OF IT. So apologies for the short chapter, must feel weird after reading the long-ass one before right? XD Anywho, I was going to write it up again but this week turned out be pretty busy for me for family reasons (the worst reasons in my case). In the end I manage started this on Friday and finished it today, since too much time had passed already passed I decided to just post this one.

**I SWEAR ON MY LIFE THE NEXT ONE WILL BE LONGER. IDK IF IT'S GOING TO BE AS LONG AS THE OTHER CHAPTER BEFORE THIS ONE, BUT I WILL TRY.**

Next chapter Chaos, Iris, and Aria shall face a much more powerful opponent. I attempted to do some action with this one, but it ended up having some drama where I wanted action. Hopefully you all enjoyed it nonetheless!

Oh, apart from that fight i'll be introducing THREE OCS next time, so look forward to that. It's actually four, but the one Perri and Melody shall be encountering won't really be part of the story till later. I'll be focusing more on Yu too.

As always I hope you leave a review! Till next time! :)

P.S: If you are interested in Pokemon, be sure to look out for an SYOC coming soon... maybe.


	7. Moving on

Spider Monkey Guild

A thick metal fist suddenly rocketed down towards Iris and Aria. The pink-haired mage barely had any time to push Aria out of the way as the attack managed to land a direct hit on her; breaking the entire floor below her, Iris gasped out for breathe as she felt a few bones break from the pure impact and was thrown towards the floor below.

Aria's mint-green eyes wavered as she gazed down at her friend below; unconscious and with bruises all over her arms and face with a light stream of blood trailing down her left cheek. The redhead began to grit her teeth as she turned to look at the attacker, who suddenly landed on the bottom floor with a loud thud thanks to... whatever he had on.

The opponent's whole body was completely concealed by the huge, thick metal armor. Honestly Aria had no idea how they could even move in such a thing; its arms were oddly long and were as thick as pillars, with its fist even tougher-looking. It's whole body was a steel-grey, with the head part nothing but a red eye and the legs as big as its arms... because of this the person inside looked to be about 10 -meters tall.

Aria heard someone cackle as they neared her unconscious friend. Not even thinking about it the redhead let out a way cry as she jumped off the second floor and a weak light began to consume her body; by the time she was right above the enemy Aria was covered in a thick, diamond armor and quickly tackled the opponent into the floor.

Diamond Armor nearly covered her from head to toe in an attire made of actual, thick diamonds; it only left her face visible and made her seem a bit bigger and taller, though nothing in comparison with the enemy she was facing.

The entire floor below them was crushed from the pure weight of the attack, though metal-knight didn't even seem to flinch as it took hold of Aria – who kept bombing the enemy with punches – and threw her all the way across the large guild and onto the concrete wall with a loud crash.

Figuring that would keep her down for a while the metal-knight began to walk towards Iris, who remained unconscious a couple feet away. Much to the enemy's displeasure that wouldn't be enough as thanks to the armor, Aria felt practically nothing from the impact. As soon as she got up on her feet the redhead charged towards the metal-knight.

A note to take in was that Diamond Armor was a lot heavier in comparison with Diamond Lady Armor, who was heavy enough, so what she would call charge looked more like jogging as Aria tackled the enemy onto the ground yet again with a furious cry.

"GET AWAY FROM HER!" Aria hissed through gritted teeth while showering the enemy with heavy punches. The killing intent practically oozed out of her mint-eyes as she attempted to damage the armor...

Like last time the metal-knight didn't even seem to be feeling any of Aria's attacks and simply got up as the red eye on its head began to glow; a small, crimson-colored magic circle appeared right between itself and Aria, who held one of her fists mid-way as she eyed the circle for a couple moments... which was probably a mistake in her part.

Not given time to move out of the way, Aria could only cover her face as a threating-amount of flames erupted from the magic circle and consumed her completely. The attack nearly set ablaze everything in the guild and sent Aria ripping through the already weakened wall and outside, where she landed with a light tremor onto a meadow of flowers.

This time the metal-knight seemed to be taking Aria as its first priority as it followed the requip-mage - nearly ripping down the rest of the wall in the process the ground trembled slightly with each step it took, which only got more violent as it neared the redhead. Already growing tired Aria decided it was time to change to a different armor; like last time a weak light consumed her current armor, though thanks to the darkness of the night it seemed brighter as Aria slowly got up - her figure getting smaller and thinner with each passing second. By the time the redhead was on her feet the light had subsided, and now she had on another armor.

Swinging her new weapon around, Aria pointed the golden-blade sword towards the metal-knight and began to grin. All her upper body was protected by a thin-looking armor-plate that looked to be made out of fish-scales, which were a bright blue and despite it being night seemed to glow. The rest of her armor was a matching-colored war skirt and some boots, which were made out of the same scales.

Being able to run at her full capacity this time the redhead charged straight-ahead towards the metal-knight, who seemed to have a bit of difficulty getting ahold of Aria even as she was right in front of it. Swinging her sword in its direction the iron-monstrosity was hit with a small blade of water, which managed to throw him a couple steps back; she repeated this move over and over again till the red eye on the metal knight began to glow.

Aria widened her eyes when she realized what it was about to do, though as fast as the magic circle had appeared the redhead was pleased when it suddenly vanished, but confused as well. Looking up at the red eye she began to scowl at the familiar mossy-haired mage, who had stabbed one of his energy-swords onto the red eye, but was nonetheless thankful he had come in time.

The metal-knight attempted to get a hold of Chaos, though the purple-eyed male easily dodged the large hand by jumping down and landing a couple inches next to Aria.

"I ain't even gonna bother askin' why you decided to show yer'self right now instead of earlier," the redhead pointed out with a light scowl, "Instead, i'll thank ya for the save,"

Chaos rolled his eyes, "There's a door that leads to the basement, which is full of all the shit they stole. To make a long story short the treasure is enchanted by some spell that paralyzes anyone who touches it without the Spider Monkey guild mark..." noticing the metal monstrosity was charging at them with speed it hadn't shown before, Chaos crafted two swords of the same white transparent-energy before looking at Aria, "I got Iris out of the guild already, so don't hesitate to go throw this guy back,"

Just as Chaos finished his sentence the metal-knight brought down one of its large fists towards the duo, which they dodged by jumping to the side, and just as he was about to bring it up again Chaos brought forth his two sword in attempts to cut off one of its arms while Aria swung a couple blasts of water at the metal monstrosity's back. That amounted to next-to-zero damage much to Chaos and Aria's displeasure. Once the metal-knight was able again it attempted to punch Chaos with one of its large fists – of course it was obvious the mage had the advantage in speed as he easily dodged the attack by moving to the side and out of the metal knight's range.

Chaos threw his two energy-swords at the metal-knight's chest, though as soon as the tip hit the surface they dissipated into small bits of white energy. Chaos wasn't stupid, this is what he expected. Gaining quite a bit of distance between himself and the metal monstrosity, the mossy-haired male decided it was about time he got serious.

Focusing his energy Chaos began to summon numerous magic circles around him, all facing the metal-knight a couple meters away who remained oddly still. It wasn't till the enemy finally realized what was about to happen that it charged towards Chaos, who continued to keep his eyes close as more magic circles began to appear above him.

Aria jumped back to scene with a devious grin; now back in her Diamond Armor the redhead figured that if she was going to run out of magic energy then she might as well help out. Tackling the metal-knight onto the field of flowers Aria gritted her teeth as she attempted to keep the opponent down, who seemed to be having a much harder time getting up.

Sweat began dripping down the redhead's forehead, most of her stamina was already gone and her magic reserve was about to go dry at any moment. Aria had never re-equipped on so many armors in one day, usually it took only one to solve her problems most of the time... the redhead began to plead that Chaos would finish soon with whatever he had planned inside her mind, so that she could go check on Iri-

As soon as the Diamond Armor equipped itself off due to having no more energy Aria only had a moment to react. The redhead got up on her feet and jumped off the metal-knight as it got back up on it's two legs and began to charge at Chaos once again.

Dark-purple eyes opened up to see the metal monstrosity running at him like an avalanche, nearly tearing off the ground and sending all of the flowers below him flying in it's path. About fifteen magic circles hovered above the mossy-haired male, each one of them already beginning to spark slightly with energy as they readied themselves to fire at his notice.

Chaos didn't even bother to look at Aria running from the corner of his eye, probably to make sure she wouldn't get herself killed in the attack; that was probably the right choice. Bringing forth a single hand Chaos pointed it at the metal-knight, who was nearing him with every second passing by as the mossy-haired male muttered his spell, "Soul-Make: Cannon,"

Every magic circle, fully charged with enough energy, fired off a shining orb of energy towards the metal-knight at a threatening speed. Before the metal monstrosity had any time to dodge a large orb managed to tear off its whole arm, which was followed by the rest as all energy-orbs that somehow managed to hit some part of its body. Limbs of the armor were sent flying off with each impact till the metal-knight was nothing but some ragged remains on the mashed up ground.

Chaos closed his eyes for a couple moments as he tried to regain a proper hold of his breathe rhythm. He wasn't out of energy just yet, but that spell had drained him quite a bit Still, it was nothing that wavered his confidence as he began to walk towards of what remained of the metal-knight – crafting another energy-sword on his left hand, Chaos' dark purple eyes analyzed an older man attempting to get off a large metal-piece off of him.

Noticing the Spider Monkey mark stamped on his face, dark purple eyes began to glint with fury as Chaos realized who this man was. Getting ahold of the metal-chest plate and easily throwing to the side, Chaos didn't give the old man a chance to get away as he pointed his energy-sword straight towards the guild master's neck... who had attempted to run away, despite looking quite weak.

"Tell me why I shouldn't just slice off your neck right now, scum," Chaos gritted his teeth while he held the tip of the energy-sword closer towards the old man's neck, who was sweating bullets... though out of nowhere began to grin.

The Spider Monkey guild master began to cackle, "Ha! You won't kill me! Otherwise, you would be charged with murder!" the old man pointed out with a sly grin.

Chaos simply eyed the guild master for a bit, almost as if being reminded of some past event. Thinking he was safe, the older male never expected for the mossy-haired male to suddenly kick him the face which broke not only his nose, but probably a good amount of teeth as it knocked him out.

"You're right... it's not worth dirtying my name for you," Chaos adjusted his purple vest before wiping off some dirt that had gotten on him, a bit too casual for someone that had just taken out an entire dark guild with only a team of three mages.

Wait.

Confident that the guild master wouldn't be getting up, Chaos tucked his hands to his pant-pockets before he began to make his way where he had set down Iris. On the way he took a look at the guild and expected to be on fire, but oddly enough all the flames caused by the spell the metal-knight had used were gone... which made him wonder slightly why till his ears caught noise of chatter.

Continued on his way Chaos' dark purple eyes gazed at Iris and Aria, though with the redhead mostly bombing her pink-haired friend with questions from what it seemed. They were right below a small apple-tree near the guild building, but still a tad too far from the fight scene that had just transpired. Honestly Iris seemed pretty banged up from the direct punch she took, but one wouldn't be able to notice just how hurt she really was with that small smile on her lips.

Is what Chaos thought anyways.

"...You ain't feeling tired or anything, right?" Aria asked, her mint-green eyes glimmering with worry for her friend, "You can't sleep 'kay?! That's bad! Really, really bad! You might not wake up!" the redhead stated in a worried-tone, almost as if she truly believed those words. .

Iris shook her head, chuckling lightly, "I'm fine, Aria. Really..."

When Chaos finally reached them he slumped down on the patch of grass right in front of the two friends. Both mages turned to look at the mossy-haired male, though just as Iris was about to speak up her redhead friend beat her to it;

"...Thanks," the redhead muttered, turning to look at the ground out of embarrassment, "Not just for helping me, but also for getting Iris out of there," a light blush coated her cheeks as she thanked Chaos. It felt weird thanking him after she screamed at him at earlier, to be honest during the whole fight she never thought Chaos would even come and help her.

Iris nodded in agreement, though didn't say anything and simply smiled at Chaos.

"It's no problem," Chaos stated in a tired-tone. Dark purple orbs glanced up at the large gap above which gave perfect view of the sky, which was already lightening up thanks to the morning-sunlight. He felt tired – it was probably 6 AM from what he could tell and they had done a whole day's worth of traveling earlier. Taking that in mind they had also fought with about 100-or so bandits and the master, that had been in some magical metal armor, which drained them out quite a bit.

"Say, Chaos..." Iris started, though paused for a moment to make sure she had her companion's attention. She continued when Chaos turned to look at her, "Um... could I ask you something?"

"Sure,"

"We have to take all of the stolen treasure AND each one of the bandits as well as the master back... right?" The pink-haired questioned in a hesitant tone.

"Yeah," Chaos confirmed her thoughts, a tad confused why she was asking this.

Aria blinked, suddenly realizing what Iris was getting at "Hold a sec... how on earthlan' we gonna do that?!" the redhead besides Iris suddenly questioned, "I mean, it took us a whole day navigating through all... that..." she didn't even mention the fact they were drained not only physically, but mentally too – Iris was in bad shape, there were like a hundred of these bandits, and Chaos had taken a close look at the stolen loot... it was enormous.

…

…

…

"I'll think of something," Chaos reassured his two companions, despite looking as if he would fall asleep at any moment.

Victory Tree Guild – February 2nd

Riley slowly opened his eyes and onyx orbs gazed at the ceiling of his room. Suddenly after a while of just watching the crazed-haired male began wondering a lot things... like why was the light of his room on being one of them, but mostly why he had slept on the cold floor instead of his bed.

Slowly getting up on his feet Riley suddenly clutched the back of his head – feeling a slight sting of pain Riley began to feel around his chocolate-hair with one of his arms, ruffling his hair even more before finding a small bump; trembling light Riley instantly withdrew his hand as it started to hurt more. For a moment the waiter wondered what had happened last night and as he tried to recall any details Riley was surprised to remember nothing; after a while Riley figured that the bump on his head was from hitting himself on the wall too hard, which probably happened while he was fast asleep and fell off his bed.

Yeah, that was it.

His onyx orbs glanced over at the small, lacrima clock hanging off another wall – seeing as he was awake now; Riley had figured that he might as well get ready for work. Much to the waiter's pleasure, he had woken up early today. It was just by half an' hour but Riley was glad that for once, Mor wouldn't be barging in to wake him up; with a sly grin on his lips Riley walked towards his small wooden wardrobe and slid it open so that he could get fresher copy of his uniform, because that's what his mistress had ordered him to wear while working... "to look nice" she said - for once Riley agreed with the young girl as the clothes he had first arrived in the guild were all raggedy and ripped from all over, so this uniform was the better option.

Without his consent Riley's mind began to idle about random thoughts, most of these thoughts concerning a certain new addition to staff – like would Emiki be wearing a uniform too? Or what on earthland would happen if she left her in the kitchen by herself? Yesterday night had been bad enough...

The waiter's train of thought was cut off by the need to change into his cleaner attire, so that's what he did. More or less 10 minutes flew by before Riley had changed to a fresher copy of his uniform – with his older one being in a basket at far corner of his room Riley, after finishing tying his shoes, was about walk out of his room till he noticed a small, floating ten-year old looking blonde girl floating at the door looking directly at him. Just like that everything that had gone down last night came flooding back in – while this girl kept going on about who knows what Riley had attempted to scream out for help, though was knocked out by some hit to the head.

"Fyi, I'm not going to apologize for knocking you out!" almost as if this ghost, spirit, whatever she was had read her thoughts emerald eyes looked at Riley accusingly, though oddly enough he didn't look as freaked out as he probably should be, "If any of those lame-os heard you scream like a schoolgirl they'd think you're crazy! So you should, like, thank me!" Lucia defended while floating through the room, though her emerald orbs never leaving Riley.

The waiter's tired-looking orbs followed the tiny blonde all over the room, till she finally came to a halt over his bed, "... I guess you're right, thanks." Riley replied casually with a yawn escaping his lips at the end.

Lucia blinked several times, probably making sure if she had heard him right before floating towards the nineteen-year old, "Aren't you going to, like, freak out like last night?" the emerald-eye girl asked, not even attempting to hide the disbelief in her tone from the way Riley was acting.

"No,"

"Why" Lucia questioned further, now floating around Riley.

The chocolate-haired male shrugged casually, "I don't know, could be the hit to head I received last night or the fact I'm still half-asleep... you choose," the onyx eyed male informed the tiny blonde, who finally came to a stop right in front of him.

Lucia continued to stare at her new master with the same disbelief in her eyes, though after a couple seconds she rolled her eyes, "Fine, whatever! I'll just disappear for now I guess... better than this dump you call a room!" the emerald eyed girl informed Riley of her last thoughts in her usual bratty tone before vanishing into thin air – not a hint of her presence left anywhere. For a couple moments the waiter simply stood there wondering if everything that had just happened was some sort of illusion done by his brain, though after hearing Lucia's voice inside his head telling him if he was just going to stand there like some kind of idiot or get out Riley continued on his way and exited the room.

The small light-lacrima floated right beside him like usual and lighted up the darkened hallway as he made his way towards the door at the end, passing by a couple doors on the way before entering the guild-hall; coated in the weak morning sunlight Riley found no more use for the light lacrima, so he simply let it float besides the door before closing it.

Riley trembled lightly from the chilly temperature – it was nothing he wasn't used to by now so he wasn't bothered by it much. Looking around dining hall for a bit Riley admired the scenery, just like he did every morning, before making his towards the kitchen; a certain, white-haired kid would probably be waking up at any moment now and probably bother Riley for her usual scrambled eggs like every morning so he figured that for once, Riley would have them already prepared.

On his way to the kitchen Riley passed by Mordred's office before hearing Lucia's voice echo through his mind;

_'Watch out!'_

Freezing up right in front of the door Riley was about to ask what he should watch out for till the door to Mordred's office slammed opened – it wasn't that which knocked him down, though. No you see what knocked him down was his mistress scurrying out of her office like a bullet and not even bothering to see if anyone was in her way. With the collision the two fell onto the wooden floor of the guild and a bunch of papers Mor had been carrying flew all over the place.

"Damn it Riley! Why on earthland are you awake so early?!" the young teen questioned in an annoyed tone – looking as if she was in a hurry instead of answering her question Riley decided to help her pick up all the papers scattered on the ground; much like always Mordred didn't even bother thanking him and instead started picking up some of the papers herself.

It wasn't till Riley caught glimpse of the context of one that he realized what exactly where all these: they were all paperwork for all of Victory Tree's current members. Usually this wouldn't be enough to question his mistress but after reading this certain piece of paper in his hand; Riley glanced at the young mistress... who was looking through the small stack of papers to make sure nothing was missing.

"Mor... who the hell is Radfor Irving?"

Ruby orbs turned to glare at the waiter as she attempted to get ahold of the paper in Riley's grip, but failing, "He's a member of this guild! Now give it here!" the young teen demanded, not once stopping her attempts to get it.

Riley dodged every single one of Mordred's grabs, "You know lying to the Magic Council is a serious crime, right?" holding up the member-form up in the air and out of Mordred's range, onyx orbs looked down at the young mistress with accusation – which didn't seem to bother her in the slightest, "Filling out paperwork for fake members counts as lying to them!" the nineteen-year old reminded Mor, though it didn't seem as she was listening as the young mistress finally took the form out of Riley's grasp.

"I'm not lying! He's real!" the white-haired teen defended in an annoyed tone, "Anyways move out of the way! I need to get these to the nearest Magic Council base," Mordred quickly added in before strolling past Riley.

There were only 3 days left till the end of the week, so if she didn't get all this paperwork in her guild would be disbanded. This had been a mistake in her part, but as of right now she had only turned in paperwork for Echo, Julianna, Chaos, and Aestus so officially she only had 4 members. After realizing Victory Tree now had over 10 members Mor began to work on the paperwork as fast as possible for the rest... though had fallen asleep. In a rush the young mistress filled out all the paperwork herself - knowing most of the needed information on her members Mor had asked the newer ones what magic they used while they ate pancakes, so that wasn't a problem.

_'I should have asked where they're from...' _she ended up just putting Beach City for all the ones she didn't know about, since leaving it blank would be considered incomplete.

"That would be here in Beach City, " Riley recalled to himself, suddenly remembering that it was on the other side of the city. Glancing towards his mistress the waiter could see she was already nearing the guild doors and was about to exit, though after pulling one of them open Mor seemed to freeze up for some reason.

Mordred looked in disbelief at all the D-class jobs hanging off of both doors, nearly covering them completely. Doing a quick count the young mistress realized there had to be at least 50 jobs hanging off the door all together.

_'How?! When?!'_

While the thought crossed her mind Mordred realized that she had been inside her all office all day long yesterday. For some reason people didn't really like entering her guild and simply left the forms at the door, which annoyed her since if by chance nobody entered or exited the guild all day long they would have no idea of their existence – guessing that was the case here because Riley didn't move them onto the board or in the very least somewhere inside like he was supposed to do the young mistress began to think of some sort of solution.

Don't get the wrong idea here, Mor was actually pleased with the good amounts of civilians that trusted them enough to do these jobs but there weren't any members in the guild today. Zero, nada! Everyone was out on some job – Melody and Perri had probably already left for their job since they told her they would be leaving early in the morning. For a moment the young mistress began to consider doing all the jobs herself as most of them seemed pretty simple to accomplish, but considering how many jobs there were that would probably take all day! Mor didn't have such time, but she couldn't just wait either. Because most of these looked easy to do young mistress figured they would only be valid for today; seeing as the client could either do it themselves or hire someone else.

Despite being D-class these jobs were important in their own way; one of a guild's top priorities was to help it's community as doing this earned them not just jewel but the support of their city, the ones they were protecting. Mor was no fool, she knew a lot of residents of Beach City either didn't know of their existence or cared about them, thinking that a guild run by a mere fourteen-year old was no good. That's why she always insisted her members to do these jobs whenever they didn't have anything to do...

With curiosity getting the best of him, Riley walked towards the scene and instantly caught sight of all the jobs. The waiter's eyes grew wide at the number of D-class jobs and turned to look at Mor, who seemed to be in deep thought. Riley was panicking inside, he didn't know what sort of punishment Mordred would give him for not telling her or even getting these inside.

To his luck the young mistress didn't care about any of that at the moment, instead her thoughts were filled with one question;

_'Who on earthland is going to complete all these jobs?!'_

Out of nowhere the two heard a some footsteps behind them, causing both to turn around and see who it could possibly be. After spotting one of the newer members of the guild walking towards the job board Riley glanced down at his mistress, who seemed as if all her problems were solved.

While aware of their location Yu didn't even bother to greet the waiter and his mistress, instead the blonde continued his way towards the board till he finally reached it. The mage was wearing pretty much the same as yesterday – the only difference was he had switched out his shoes for some similar colored boots which seemed to partway up his shins and a black, fur-lined hooded jacket which reached all the way down to his knees.

Wondering for a moment how he would look with the same attire and finding the mental image ridiculous, Riley simply watched as a gloved hand reached for a job request on the board. Yu's orangish-yellow orbs seemed to analyze the job real quick to make sure it was the right one before walking towards the guild doors, were Riley and Mor were standing,

"Oh, uh mistress... i'm going to leave on a job, it's A-class," the blonde informed his mistress, quickly adding in that it would take a couple days to complete – that was obviously a lie. While the job required him to do a bit of traveling Yu figured that this would be the perfect alibi to go out and look for an uncaster outside the city... or find some other way to get rid of the Mark of Hades.

Just as he was about walk pass two Yu felt someone grab the back of his jacket – naturally he turned to look at whoever and a part of him wasn't surprised to see Mor smiling up innocently at him, which meant that something was about to go wrong, "Erm, see that's not going to be possible,"

"...What?"

Mor shoved all the paperwork for her members onto Riley and began taking down all the D-class jobs on the doors, which surprisingly enough Yu just noticed. Cocking up an eyebrow the blonde simply watched the young mistress for the whole minute that it took her to grab them all and organize them into a small, but nonetheless thick looking stack. Not wasting a beat Mor quickly yanked the job off of Yu and proceeded to shove all these lower class ones onto him; taken aback for a second the blonde quickly regained his cool and was not only about drop this stack on the floor but take his job back before Mor spoke;

"You see... Yu, you need the pass the newbie test before you can go on an actual job!" the young mistress informed the handsome blonde, not even bothering to look at Riley as he already knew to play along with all her lies, "You must complete all these D-class jobs before you can go on an actual job!" Mordred added in with a devious smirk – she handed the job Yu was going to take to Riley, who handed the young mistress all the paperwork in return.

"...That's the stupidest thing I have ever heard," dropping the nice-guy act, Yu voiced out his actual thoughts, "You're insane- no, you must be beyond idiotic if you believe I'll waste my day doing all this crap-"

"By the Mark of Hades I, Mordred V. Harmonia, command you to complete without failure all the D-class jobs I have just handed you,"

Upon finishing the command both males turned to look at the cross bone mark on the back of the blonde's palm which began to glow an eerie purple for a couple seconds before going back ot it's dull color, leaving no sign of what had just happened. Gritting his teeth a bit the mage forced up a smile, which looked really forced, "Fine, you want all these jobs completed... i'll fuc-"

"NO SWEARING! By the Mark of Hades I, Mordred V. Harmonia, command you to never swear again!"

Once again cut off by the young mistress, Yu didn't even bother to look at Mark of Hades as it knew what would happen after she said those words. As of right now he could no longer say any swear words, or he would die. Looking as if he was about to burst, Yu simply took a deep breath before glancing down at Mordred, "... okay, i'll complete all these! N-no problem!" already having a hard enough time keeping up his calm demeanor, Yu decided that it would be best if he just left, so that's what he did – walking past the two the handsome blonde turned a left and walked down past the street with the stack of jobs in hand before disappearing from view.

There was no problem with this, surely there had be some uncaster somewhere in such a huge city as this one! Yeah, this way he would have a perfect excuse to go all over the city and even earn some jewel! Once he found an uncaster he would make them take this dreaded curse off of him... then that's where things would finally get fun.

Both Mordred and Riley continued to look at the spot they had last seen Yu, though after a couple moments the young mistress suddenly remembered what she had to do, "Okay... I really need to head to the Magic Council base stationed here and get these babies in! I should be back in a couple hours, so bye Riley!" ruby orbs looked up at the waiter before Mor scurried down the opposite direction Yu had gone in, waving lightly at Riley before disappearing from sight.

Figuring standing there would accomplish nothing the waiter closed the door behind him and entered the guild. Like originally planned Riley walked towards the kitchen, on the way the onyx eyed male placed the job Yu was about to take back on the board before continuing on his way; while Riley wasn't going to lie and say that whole scene hadn't been fun to watch the nineteen-year old couldn't just sit around all day, otherwise Mor would scold him once she got back.

'_That was, like super hilarous to watch!' _

Riley suddenly heard Lucia speak up – her laugh echoing inside his head making it impossible for him not to let out a couple laughs himself, "Yeah it was," the waiter agreed with the tiny blonde with an amused smirk. Turning to look at the bar Riley was surprised to see Emiki sitting at one of the stools, seeming to have drifted off into space or finding the ceiling very interesting. From what he could tell his new co-worker wore what she had come to the guild with yesterday, which he didn't really mind.

"Emiki," Riley called out to the blonde who was taken out of her slight trance and turned to look at him with her usual calm-collected expression.

" Yes... Ryan?" she seemed to hesitate on that last part, unsure if that was his name.

Riley froze for a moment, finally realizing how Melody felt after mistaking her name for Maria, Marie, Maggie, and a bunch of other ones not even worth mentioning, " It's Riley... but anyways, how about you start brooming? I'll clean the kitchen in the meantime," the waiter suggested to the blonde, who only nodded in response before getting up and fetching the broom resting on a nearby wall.

Emiki wondered for a moment what all that commotion at the entrance had been about. Perhaps it had to do with all those D-class jobs those two girls had informed Ray about... Melody and Perri was it? Yet despite responding with a "yeah" it was pretty obvious that her co-worker didn't even know what they were talking about and simply left for the kitchen all flustered.

Well, she didn't really care either way.

As Riley entered the kitchen Lucia began to speak up once again;

'_That Emiki chick is like, super freaky! How is she even still working here?! She broke like half-a-dozen eggs yesterday while trying to open them!'_

Being reminded of what had occurred yesterday while preparing the pancakes, Riley was just glad he hadn't given her a more difficult task...

"I'm sure Mor had her reasons for contracting her," the onyx eyed male spoke while he walked towards the fridge and opened it up. Despite not manifesting herself Riley could almost see the tiny blonde rolling those emerald eyes of hers, though as she continued to ramble on the waiter simply droned her out and grabbed a couple eggs – seeing as they were the only ones in the guild there was no problem if they ate first, right?

Grand Central Station of Fiore

\- located in the dead-middle of Fiore dozens of trains would leave and arrive each hour from all over the kingdom. The station had been built in the city of Anthrenas, which housed one of the top tier guilds of Fiore that went by the name of Riders of Black; ranked as the strongest in the country they've won the Grand Magical Games ever since their rival Red Cane vanished years ago and have hauled in many achievements - the fall of Genisis Grey being one of their major ones, this dark guild is only one of the many they have taken down; unfortunately this only means that their standards for who can join the guild are set very, very high.

Amongst the hundreds of people at this train station a female-duo were lucky enough to have gotten one of the last remaining benches while they waited for their train, which would be taking them to the south-side of the kingdom. Both were young-looking women but apart from that, they looked totally different. Every male that passed by them would stare at the tallest of the two, who's striking long curly silvery-gray hair stood out the most out of all her features - a couple mages couldn't help but think she looked familiar. Of course with her large forehead, red large lips, and strikingly wide-looking blue eyes which were just too far apart made her hold this... other worldly beauty that made it impossible to confuse her with someone else.

Maria Victoria Fandago, or "Mavic" as she preferred was way too engrossed into the latest edition of Sorcerer's Weekly to even bother looking at the large, central clock hanging in the middle of the station. Mavic's clothing consisted of a loose, sleeveless orange dress that was over a red dress-shirt... which seemed to hug her athletic-build; she had a small crystal pendant hanging from her neck and some black combat boots.

It was up to her companion to keep watch of the clock, who seemed pretty plain in comparison to Mavic – though the silvery-gray haired woman could probably make anyone look plain from just standing beside them. Piercing pale-blue eyes continued to watch the enormous golden clock as it ticked, supposedly the train that would be taking them to the Southern Fiore would arrive in fifteen minutes.

The petite young woman who seemed a few years younger than Mavic had her deep-brown hair loose and short – reaching her shoulders. Most of her tanned-skin was visible due to her clothing, which consisted of some black cargo-pants that had too many pockets and some bright-green running shoes. Cassandra Azarola or "Cass" had a deep-green jeweled pendant hanging from around her neck with a dark-blue tank top finishing off her attire; one wouldn't be able to help but look at all of the faint scars crisscrossing over her arms.

Since it was kind of hot in the train station, Cass had her denim knee-length jacket off and folded across her knees. The tanned mage was tempted to ask if she could put her jacket with the rest of Mavic's stuff inside the older female's ruby-red suitcase, but Cass already knew what answer she would be getting from her.

Pale blue orbs glanced at her companion, who happily continued to skim through and see if they had included one of her endorsements this week, "You're awfully cheery for someone who just got turned down by Riders of Black," Cass reminded the beauty of what had happened just yesterday, both had applied to join the guild but were turned down... despite traveling quite far to get here.

Turning away from the magazine Mavic's bright-blue orbs looked directly at Cass before her red-lips formed into a devious smirk, "I admit myself that I am quite displeased with such a turn of events...but if the guild mistress doesn't like my babies, I don't mind looking for another guild to join," the silvery-gray haired woman pointed out – there was no way on earthland that she would part ways with her babies for a guild, despite it being the strongest and most famous in Fiore;

"Besides, I didn't actually get rejected like someone~" the beauty sang out in a cocky tone, her own blue orbs looking at the shorter woman.

One of her eyes twitched lightly at the comment, "Shut it! I don't want to hear this from the one who missed out on the chance of joining Riders of Black for some mere bugs!" the tanned-woman pointed out in annoyed tone, almost as if she didn't believe it herself.

As if on queue a small, black-widow crawled from seemingly out of nowhere and onto one of Mavic's hands; laying down her copy of this week's Sorcerer's Weekly for a moment the silvery-gray haired woman brought the spider closer to her face as a smile formed in her lips, "Don't listen to her my dear – after all she's just angry that unlike me, they didn't even bother testing her~" the beauty spoke to the insect softly, as if talking to a baby.

Cass shivered lightly at the scene, "That's just freaky!" it's not as if she was afraid of insects or anything, but much like a lot of people Cass would much rather prefer squishing a spider rather than treat it as some sort of pet.

Mavic ignored her tanned-companion, which only managed to piss her off even more... but due the circumstances she was traveling with this women, Cass had chosen to remain silent for once and simply change the subject;

"So, what are we going to do now?" Cass asked Mavic, who seemed to note the calmer-sounding tone her companion was speaking in as she turned away from the black widow to look at the tanned mage;

"What we did before coming here, bounty hunting," Mavic informed her companion, " You, like always, will continue to aid me and I shall give you new information," the silvery-gray haired woman quickly added in.

"...will you really help me find-"

"It is up to you wherever you can find her or not," the beauty quickly added, "I myself do not know of her location, all I have told you so far are nothing but rumors... due to my previous connections," Mavic spoke in a much more serious tone, her bright-blue orbs staring at her companion for a couple seconds – noticing that Cass was probably thinking about something the beauty decided to change the subject.

"I took a job sheet from the board just as we exited the guild~" Mavic sang out with a devious smirk as she pulled a paper out of nowhere and began to read it, "We shall be tracking down this high-wanted criminal who's been spotted in the southern part of Fiore. She's female, young, but highly dangerous. She goes by the name Aki-"

**_"_****_Attention all passengers boarding the train to Beach City! The train has just arrived and will be leaving in 20 minutes,"_**

The lady in the intercom repeated the announcement over and over again, though by the time it had finally gone silent both females were already on the move and about to get on the train – it was massive inside with a space right in the middle of the rooms so that people could pass through to the other parts of the train. Checking their number both girl's walked for a bit before coming to a halt at a door, which Cass sided opened, before entering the space.

There was a large window on the side, giving a clear view of the station and of the people getting in – both sides of the train cabin had two red-leather seats and at the top Mavic managed to spot a luggage holder; while Cass proceeded to sit down on the farthest seat to the left so that she get a good look outside Mavic proceeded to throw her suitcase inside the luggage holder before taking the seat right beside her companion, figuring she could tell her the rest of the details later.

After a while the train finally started up and slowly left the station – gradually getting faster as it got further on the train tracks.

Mavic stretched her arms up in the air as the door suddenly slid open; despite there being two free seats the thought that there would be someone else in the small-cabin never crossed their minds for some reason. Both women turned to look at the door so they could get a proper look of who had entered - not one of them were prepared for the type of person they would be looking at.

For a woman Mavic could be considered pretty tall, but this guy easily beat it her in height and had to be at least six foot in height. The male's ash-gray hair was short and was styled in a clean cut; despite being clad in clothing right now it was easily tell he was very well kept – especially the upper part of his body. The tall man had a trimmed up beard that covered the bottom sides of his face, think of it was a five o'clock shadow, and had a long scar running down his right eye; which muted his already pale-blue eye even more making it look almost gray.

You'd think the scar would stand out the most, but what instantly drew both women's attention was his entire left arm which seemed to be out of some dark red ice.

Most of his pearly white skin was hidden well under his current attire; a loose-fitting crimson hoodie which had the entire left sleeve ripped off so that his ice-arm would fit, since it looked a tad more bulkier. As of the moment he had some worn-out plain jeans that were hold up by a gold colored belt – almost as if to match with this, the man's combat boots were of the same color.

Both Mavic and Cass continued to stare at the ice-arm, truly never seeing anything like it before they looked up at the man in question – instantly met with a steely gaze which sent some slight shivers down their spines, they were further surprised when his lips formed into a smile.

"Uh, hi," he waved at the two females with his regular hand – speaking in a deep, yet friendly voice. Slumping down on one of the free seats across from them with a light thump his pale blue orbs looked at the two women, "Are you two also mages?"

"...yea-"

"YES!" Mavic suddenly spoke up, cutting off Cass, "We are independent as of the moment, though," the silvery-gray haired woman informed the man with her usual devious smile, "If I may ask, what your name might be?"

"Just call me Redd," The ash-haired man responded with a light wave of his regular hand, "Yours?"

"Mavic!" the beauty instantly answered, though it seemed as if her companion wasn't even going to bother replying, "Oh, and the little girl besides me is Cass," Mavic quickly added, making sure the younger woman heard her – which she did - she brought her attention back on Redd.

"Why you bit-" Cass started through gritted teeth, though was cut off half-way by the newcomer;

"I see... if it isn't too personal, are you also heading to Beach City?" Redd asked the duo, though from the looks of it seemed as if Cass wasn't going to say split.

Naturally Mavic answered, "Of course~!" the beauty sang out, "We are both looking for a guild to join but so far, lady luck hasn't been too kind with that. I figured since the Southern part of Fiore has more guilds we could fine a decent one to join," the silvery-gray woman informed Redd, which was partially true. While Mavic thought this Redd fellow was pretty cute there was no need for him know they would be hunting down a criminal in the meantime.

Cass simply kept her gaze outside, it's not as if she was anti-social or anything – on the contrary she was usually a pretty big talker, even if sometimes Cass ended up in some sort of trouble because of that – but the mage wasn't the most trustful person, and like usual she kept her distance from people she just met and didn't know a thing about.

"Oh, you know you could always try the guild in Beach City," the taller mage suggested the two, which instantly peeked their interest – even Cass had turned to look at Redd, "I'm sure the mistress there wouldn't mind letting you two join," the ash-haired man reassured the two, though as he looked at them Redd noticed a slight look of confusion etched on their faces.

"Didn't Red Cane disappear years ago?" surprisingly enough it was Cass who spoke up, her own pale blue orbs looking at the much taller mage with suspicion.

Redd blinked a couple times, unsure of who this Red Cane could possibly be, "Red Cane? I'm talking about Victory Tree," the ash-haired man informed the both women, which only ended up confusing them even more from what it looked like.

"Victory Tree?" the two mages questioned further, each one cocking up an eyebrow.

Nodding lightly the man reached into one of his pockets with his regular hand and began looking for something; Redd was at it for a couple moments, but eventually he took out a folded paper and began to unfold it with both hands – surprising Cass and Mavic who could clearly see his ice-arm functioned perfectly like a regular one, "I'm part of the guild and went on this job that was distributed to all the guilds on the southern side of Fiore per the client's request – though it's been like three months... give or take a couple days," Redd wasn't even going to mention that he was only part of the guild for a couple days before leaving on said job.

If he went on a job himself that meant this guy was actually pretty strong, "Say, what type of job was it?" Mavic asked with a curious filled tone.

"Oh, I just had to grab a golden cup from this island... I forgot it was name, though." it went something along lines of the world's black spot, but Redd for the life of him couldn't recall the name. The summary of the job was also pretty vague as all it said was to recover an item of extreme value from an island, in fact the client didn't give all the details till Redd along with a couple other mages showed up at his mansion.

"It was SS-class though... I admit getting the cup wasn't the hardest part about it, but fighting all those monsters!" he wasn't that good at fighting so many opponents at the same time, but in the end it pretty much just turned to a game of hide n' seek and Redd decided to not fight whenever possible.

"...would mind telling us the story?"

"Oh! I wouldn't mind, in fact that would make this train ride faster!" with a jolly laugh Redd got in a comfortable position before starting his tale.

Xiram Village

A single pale-amber orb watched her both her companions who were walking at the front and conversing with each other about how strong this Bug Emperor could be. The townspeople had given each mage a large, dark leather backpack full of supplies for the journey they would be making; after telling all the people of Xiram of the situation they had been surprisingly willing and believed in the words of the mages that had saved them from the giant's attack.

Never catching sight of Christmas after that the trio slept in a small cabin and had decided the previous night they would leave Xiram in the morning. According to the giant they had interrogated the lair of the monster was deep in the mountains farther to the east and it just so happened these mountains were what separated Fiore from the its neighboring kingdom.

While Echo believed in the behemoth's man words her two teammates were still a bit hesitant on going – after all this could very well be a wild goose chase to get the mages out of the picture and have Xiram all defenseless for 3 whole days, the minimum time it would take to get from here to there. In all that time the giants could very well just come and destroy everything...

"What the giant said is true," Echo suddenly blurted out from behind them, causing her teammates to turn to look at her, "I could tell with my magic and I felt the slightest hint of grief when he told us the monster had killed some of its fellow comrades... despite hiding it well, I think he lost a very cherished someone in the attack," the blonde informed her two teammates in a soft tone, though her gaze was on the passing ground.

Julianna stretched her hands up in the air and nodded, "If you say so Echo, I believe ya," the take-over user reassured the blonde, "But that doesn't mean the other giants don't have any other ideas, they could very well just attack Xiram while we're gone," the young woman pointed out.

"Then we just need to beat this thing as fast as possible, right?" Aestus spoke up with a slight grin.

Julianna smirked up at the taller mage, "Yeah! You're right," the take-over user shouted out with a laugh.

Just as they were about to exit Xiram the trio heard a pair of footsteps coming from behind them – thinking that maybe it was one of the townspeople forgetting to give them something, everyone was surprised when they turned around and saw a very familiar mage running towards them. He wore pretty much the same as yesterday with the addition of a red vest thrown over his long-sleeved shirt and a similar colored backpack, which was probably full of supplies.

"Christmas?" Echo questioned as the mage got closer to the trio, who merely watched as he finally reached them and was now standing a couple inches away.

Taking a couple deep breathes Christmas regained control of his breathe before looking at the trio, "I heard the story from a couple of my neighbors... to make a long story short, please let me come with you!" the small group was further surprised when Christmas suddenly bowed, and while it only served to feed Aestus and Julianna's ego Echo quickly brought her hands up defensively and told him if he really wanted to he could tag along.

Julianna blinked a couple times before remembering something, "Say, what about your dad?" the young woman asked the crimson-eyed male, who seemed to freeze up at the mention of his parent.

"...if you don't mind, i'd rather not talk about that for now,"

The take-over user merely shrugged, seeing no need question him further if he didn't want to talk about it.

"Why do you want to come along anyways?" Aestus questioned, wondering why he would rather leave then stay by his father's side.

Christmas straightened up his posture and stared at the taller male straight in the eyes, "If that thing is really the reason for all this happening... I need to fight to," the crimson eyed male stated in a confident tone, which sort of surprises Aestus.

"It's fine Christmas," Echo chirped in with a small smile, "If you want to come along we don't mind, we could use the extra help," the blonde reassured the taller mage, they didn't know what they were up against so another person to help them fight was a great help.

"Thank you," Christmas told the blonde, who merely smiled back at him.

Julianna stared at the small scene for a couple moments before turning her attention back up front and making her way towards the exit of the town, "Come on guys! We have a lot of ground to cover, so why don't we get moving already?"

**NO CHIBI TIME FOR THIS CHAPTER.**

Author's note: School started back up for me so i'll probably take a tad longer to get these done. Do not fear, I hopefully won't take more than two weeks to update and will try to post a new chapter every Wednesday!

This chapter didn't quite go as I imagined it would, but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless! We won't be seeing much of Team Chaos or Echo for a bit as I want to focus on other parts of the story; such as Melody and Perri's job, Yu completing all those D-class jobs, and the newly introduced characters. Oh, and Riley with some Emiki too... idk. Also get some other characters introduced. Funny enough while I do make Riley go on about how there's too many females in the guild I actually have an equal amount of male and female characters.

I especially enjoyed writing Mavic this chapter and hope the creators are happy with the way I portrayed their characters - if not tell me in the review or through a PM... Whichever you prefer. As always I encourage everyone to review and leave their thoughts! I appreciate all types of helpful feedback! :D

Till next time! And for fun if you want to ask something concerning the story or myself go ahead and leave a question in your review! I'll answer it next chapter.


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